KRAKOW

Poland, March 2017

Being an explorer like myself, my close friend Nienke invited me to take a trip together, so we started to investigate our possibilities and it turned out that we both found Krakow a very interesting option! To me, it turned out to be a very pleasantly surprising city....

I had literally no idea what to expect of Krakow. Of course I had read some general information, but never even having been to Poland, it was very difficult to imagine what it was going to be like.

So, on our first day we took a guided tour to get ourselves informed a bit more on what this city is all about. During the tour we strolled around in the Jewish neighbourhood 'Kazimierz' and encountered some very interesting urban scenes. We passed several typical bars and restaurants with robust decorations and an authentic atmosphere.

Wasn't expecting that Belgian fries would be such a thing in Krakow!

This take away place, Zapiekanki is the King of Polish fast food in this neighbourhood

Shopping for interesting items at the local flee market

Jewish Ghetto Memorial. Each empty chair symbolizes 1000 Jews killed.

After the walking tour through 'Kazimierz' we walked back to Krakow's city centre and came across a number of interesting buildings and sights. Krakow is just like a big open air museum. I didn't need anything else than walking around and taking snapshots in this beautiful city to enjoy myself!

Reflections are always a very interesting subject for my photography...

In photography, my aim is to capture a scene how I experience it. To me, this is both a very challenging task as well a philosophical quest. It is immensely hard to capture a personal experience: not only do I want a picture to represent the way I perceive a certain scene shape and colour-wise, but also the feeling that came to me while roaming around in a certain place. It always fascinates me that we as human beings will never exactly know how another person - or animal - perceives and experiences the world around us. Exchanging our experiences, emotions and thoughts is a very valuable and interesting way to help us understand what others see and feel... But, in the end, we will never be able to swap bodies and truly 'walk in someone else's shoes'. And this makes life as such a very unique and authentic experience...

Our next stop was the remarkable 'Wawel Castle', located just south of the city centre and next to the river 'Vístula'. The fact that this marvellous building was constructed during the 14th century, made me travel through time. I was especially impressed by the colour combinations of this site. The orange bricks, red roofs, cream coloured walls and the green patina that formed over time on the copper roofs and towers, make up an interesting colour pallet.

Unfortunately, on this day the cloudy sky didn't assist to make the colours stand out. This opens opportunities though to incorporate other elements in my pictures that make the upper part of the images more interesting, like the overhead lines of Krakow's rail trams or the thin branches of a nearby tree.

It's always a challenge to take pictures in a touristic place trying to cut out the tourists :-) ... There are several photography techniques to achieve pictures without:

1) The waiting game...

2) Using a ND filter... This is a dark filter that can be put in front of the camera lens that allows us to take pictures with a slower shutter speed. So, while the shutter is open for like 5 / 10 seconds... the people who are in the picture are walking around. So in the end, because of their movement they fade away in the final picture! The only down side of this technique is, that it takes a while to take the pics and that you would have to be carrying around a tripod...

And we ended the day in down town Krakow by night... Here you can actually notice the effect of the slow shutter speed very well: there are almost no people visible in the images, because they 'faded' away by moving around while I was taking the pictures. You can also notice that I used a very small aperture. When pictures at night are taken with a very small aperture, the brightest dots turn into stars...

And we came across this very creative window of a clothing store

The next day was a heavy one since we visited the concentration camp 'Auschwitz'. I actually didn't feel much like taking pictures during this day. I felt that in many places it would be disrespectful to be taking pictures, because no picture can actually capture the horrible things that happened here. So, I tried to take pictures that represent this heavy atmosphere.

The most exciting thing I want to mention about Krakow is the diversity in foods, drinks, restaurants, cafés and bars that the city offers. Since I'm a vegetarian I'm always very curious what kind of vegetarian food a place has to offer. I was actually a little bit afraid that I wouldn't be able to find a lot of vegetarian food in Krakow, well... fortunately I was very wrong about that!

It was such a great experience to, on the way to our next destination in the city, just walk into a random, cosy looking, local coffee shop and order the most original and delicious (and cheap) food. This actually added the cherry to the cake to our all over experience in Krakow.

On our way to the Kościuszko Mound we stopped in for a delicious coffee in good company...

Me and my friend Nienke at a local coffee shop

Two artist from Krakow sharing a coffee with us

The Kościuszko Mound is a remarkable landmark just outside of Krakow. It provides a great view over the city and it's an interesting walk to get here from Krakow down town.

And... a nice home made ice tea in another interesting local lunch room on the way back.

As I said in the introduction: Krakow really pleasantly surprised me! A very cool city to roam around, take pics, search for nice local places to have an original meal, and most important: all that shared in the greatest company! Thanks Nienke for sharing this great getaway with me.