Botanical pornography

Copyright for text and photos: Jan Krcmar 2009
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One of my entries for a competition on the topic "flowers".
And before you ask, it is a rose. Shot with an old russian Zenit-E-camera. Instead of a proper lens I used a single lens glass from a broken Canon lens which I held in front of the camera, which blurs the image everywhere except the place of focus.

Yes sir, we have no bananas

Copyright for text and photos: Jan Krcmar 2009
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I just scanned in a few old negatives and thought I might share this with you. Nothing special, just a banana...



And by the way, I lost out in the "summer" competition to a lot of better photographs than mine.

Competition: Summer

Copyright for text and photos: Jan Krcmar 2009
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As announced, here are my entries to the photo-competition in the czech newspaper Lidové noviny.
This week's topic was "True summer" and I submitted the following images.


Let's start with a nice, simple holiday picture. This is one of the bizarre mud vulcanoes in Qobustan (Azerbaijan). These volcanoes are about 10-20 metres high and spit mud, which then runs down the side of the hill and dries up, creating an almost african drought-surface. Summer as in heat and drought and holiday. Not an intelectual challenge, just a nice, interesting picture.


And once again straight to Chicago. This was on a very hot day last year, when the temperature was still high in the evening and made you want to jump in the lake while watching the citys skyline.


This fellow was there all day long (still Chicago), probably practiced all day... I hate the unemployed.


Come to think of it, a lot of my best pictures are from my stays in the USA. This one is from Havre, Montana. After a long day at the local beach (at a reservoir lake), playing football against local high school kids (myself against 10 of them and I still won...) within a few minutes the sunny sky changed and clouds appeared. Soon after that, hail and rain started slamming down and I got completely soaked taking this picture. You only get colours like this at the beginning of summer. Such a sky while the fields are still green.


Probably my favourite one for this week's entry. A school bus depot on Coney Island. Tommy Kane took us there and knew I would like it. So I guess if I win something, I will have to share the revenue...

That's it. I will let you know how I ended up this week.

Competition: Peace and quiet

Copyright for text and photos: Jan Krcmar 2009
As always, for better viewing open the post in a separate window. To do so, click here.

As announced, here are my entries to the photo-competition in the czech newspaper Lidové noviny.
Last week's topic was "peace and quiet" and I submitted the following images.


Here's the first. My girlfriend Marta and me went to Austria (Styria) and stumbled upon tons of old churches and ossuaries (don't worry, I had to look it up myself). They were places of absolute quiet. Not a sound.


Again in Styria, after a terrible rain which had Marta and me hide in a pub for over an hour. When the rain stopped, we continued our hike and suddenly the clouds cleared up and we came across this pond. Because it had rained, the birds had not yet started to sing again and the entire countryside seemed to have shut up for a while. I admit, the photo is not artistic, but mainly a tourist picture, but the scenery was stunning.


Total change of scenery. From Styria to Illinois. Chicago at night, well, in the evening. While Marta was shopping downtown, I went for a walk across a neighbourhood which seemed deserted and saw this backyard of a factory. I had to do quite some cleaning up on this image (noise)...


From my trip to the US and Canada in 2006, this photo was taken in a park in Ottawa. Maybe too scary, but quiet and empty nontheless.

And now for the entry which came 2nd in this weeks competition, beaten only by a shit kitschy piece of crap b/w pic with monochromatic bullshit tones.


My masterpiece from Duluth, Minnesota. Taken on a pier in extreme heat. That's me and my friend Joel in the picture. One of my favourite images of all time. But only second, which means I won fuck all this week...

Summer competition: Entries

I have finally shed all feeling of guilt and shame and have entered a photographic competition in the czech newspaper Lidové noviny. Each week, czech amateur photographers submit their photographs to a different topic.
I entered last week, the topic was "silence - places where we come to enjoy quiet". I came second on my first try.
And I have decided to let you know, which pictures I am entering and which I almost entered.