Street Shot Sundays Story & Stats

Story:

This Sunday’s Street Shot of the Week was taken by the Charles University Faculty of Arts building in Prague, Czech Republic. I hadn’t been to Prague since my first visit over 7 years ago and I was surprised how much it had changed. I had great memories of being blown away by how beautiful and unique of a city Prague was.

Unfortunately, while it’s still beautiful and unique, it had lost much of it’s charm, in my opinion, due to being overrun with tourism. Segway tours and crowds of people filled the streets, while that authentic feeling I remembered had given way to more of a tourist attraction. It’s still definitely a great city worth visiting, but this usually happens when you have something special like Prague does.

On top of a little nostalgic disappointment, just about my whole time in Prague was dark, grey and very cold. It’s still a fun city to walk around, though, and even with the crowds of tourists, the view of Charles Bridge and Prague Castle is hard to beat. I had just come over from the Prague Castle when out of no where, the clouds parted and let in some sunlight.

I had to take advantage of this temporary moment and noticed how the light was hitting the Charles University Arts building. There’s a covered walkway with arches on the outside that was letting in just a little sunlight. I saw this interesting scholar dressed in all black taking a smoke break with the sunlight hitting only his head. So I walked over and took the shot just as he brought the cigarette to his mouth and glanced at me. A few minutes later, the clouds put the sun back away to never be seen again during my stay. You take what you can get.

Stats:

• Aperture: f/8.0
• Shutter Speed: 1/500
• ISO: 400
• Focal Length: 27mm