Seven photographs

For my summer adventure travelling around Europe, I had bought a cheap, half-shitty but sufficiently decent disposable camera able to take 28 or so photographs. One camera with one roll of film that would exclusively serve as my sole way of taking pictures during my journey. Well, almost but I will get to that later. Now, I could say that it was a great challenge since there was so much to document and it became too limiting but truth be told, I have never really been that good at remembering to take photos. Instead, it became a fun and meaningful assignment having to be that selective as I only had enough film for one photo a day, some days two. Obviously, it was not the famous cathedrals or classic monuments that made the cut.

Above is a picture from the Brenner Pass from when I had just crossed the border from Austria into Italy. Not being the busiest connection, the place became quite lonely when the train heading towards Munich had left. So lonely that for a small hour, I was the only person there except for a few guys working at the train station. Now, I could have taken a scenic photo from the window seat of the train as I was making my way through the intensely green Italian Alps and those were some truly amazing views that I caught! But they were not as special as sitting in a close to deserted train station in the middle of the mountains listening to Stephen Fry reading aloud the first Harry Potter book.

In the beginning, I added the word "almost" in a parenthesis and here is why: I did take some photographs with my disposable camera during my days hiking around the Dolomites but there were just too many extraordinary views to keep it down to a handful of pictures so my phone helped me out. Still, there was more to see in Italy than mountains. On my last full day in Trento, rain and thunder filled the valley keeping me from going upwards so instead, I took a bus further down in the valley. Here, I visited the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto where I took this photo of entrance's glass ceiling. Why? Because I happened to see the most beautiful exhibition featuring 19th century Italian landscape paintings at this museum. Plus, you know, it is a pretty cool photo.

Now, I have this, let us call it an unusual habit: I like to visit cemeteries in the different cities that I go to. Though this sounds a bit weird I believe my reasons for doing so are perfectly rational. I think cemeteries say a lot about the culture of a country. Take this photo of a grave from a cemetery in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia: The grave is old and neglected just like Croatia is an extremely old culture and a country with its share of economic problems but the grave is also a beautiful and dignified celebration of an individual's life embodying honor and love.

Moving on to a lighter note. As I mentioned in one of my latest posts: In Prague, I drank beer. Yes, I saw the Powder Tower, the Charles Bridge and the astronomical clock but mainly, I drank beer. I primarily went to this one beer garden in an elevated park by the river overlooking the rooftops of the city. Obviously, I had to take an actual photograph at what became a regular hangout spot for me in those five days.

This picture is of the gorgeous Aussie girl I met in Krakow from our day-trip into nature because when is eating apple pie in the Polish mountains with a kindred spirit not a most perfect moment and an absolutely exciting adventure?

I took this photo during my last day in Krakow. Having checked out at 10, I had about twelve hours before the departure of the night train going back into Czech Republic before heading to Germany. Now, just walking around for the sake of it was fun. Most of the time. But as the sun was painfully slowly beginning to descend, I had to do something else and what exciting activity would replace walking? Lying on a park bench for three hours with this view. It was simple yet magical listening to podcasts, music or just the world itself.

This was a challenging photo to capture. I had to stand on a tree stump and put the camera through a small window of iron bars in an old brick wall. In Dresden, I went looking for Slaughterhouse Five, the battleground itself where Kurt Vonnegut experienced it all and just maybe this is the ruin (not even Google could help me that much on this one as it is not the most popular tourist attraction funnily enough). I am not going to go into too much detail about his brilliant novel but I will say that for someone who has always aspired to be a writer, it was a true pilgrimage. Of course there had to be one photo where my finger got caught in the lens. So it goes.

Seven photographs, seven stories. Stories that were a lot more thrilling, interesting and rewarding than what looks pretty on Instagram or on a postcard. Limiting myself to one roll of film turned out to be a liberation to find those moments that actually made my trip as wonderful as it was.