Golden Memories
In the summer of 1999, I went to Prague and spent the better part of a month exploring the idyllic towns and cities of the Czech Republic. A few years later, I traveled back to Prague, bringing more film with me. Although photography was a new medium to me, I was determined to capture what I saw as beautiful in the city – the softness of the light, the airy spires, and the old world charm of the streets. At the time, digital cameras were unaffordable, so I used my trusty Kodak camera, always armed with multiple rolls of film. Years later, I preserved the negatives by scanning them digitally, opening up a whole new way of creative interpretation that went far beyond prints stored in a photo album.
Using materials now considered “vintage” and marrying them with modern, digital photography techniques speaks to the sense of nostalgia I feel over film. And using digital photo editing programs acknowledges that time and technology has moved on in the photography world. Yet, as time moves on, my memory is transformed through new creative processes while staying true to the original reality. Memory is not static; it adjusts and expands, triggered by photographs and journal entries. The Prague that lives in my mind is alive in a hazy, golden dream, ephemeral but rooted by reality.
International travel contains its own challenges and frustrations, but those quickly fade away, and the moments of strolling through a lovely city on a cool, autumn evening, with beautiful, soft light lingers in the memory for much, much longer. The city becomes eternal in my imagination. Prague lives in my mind as mystical city of soft light and spires, further emphasized by a golden haze of happy and idealistic memories.
This is not the Prague of reality, where the city sits balanced between Old Europe and modern times. Rather, this is a Prague that sits gently in my imagination, where it lives like a perfect dream. The photographs in this portfolio offer a glimpse into my precious imaginings of what Prague was about – one that soars over the red rooftops in a golden, hazy memory of an idyllic travel story.
Using materials now considered “vintage” and marrying them with modern, digital photography techniques speaks to the sense of nostalgia I feel over film. And using digital photo editing programs acknowledges that time and technology has moved on in the photography world. Yet, as time moves on, my memory is transformed through new creative processes while staying true to the original reality. Memory is not static; it adjusts and expands, triggered by photographs and journal entries. The Prague that lives in my mind is alive in a hazy, golden dream, ephemeral but rooted by reality.
International travel contains its own challenges and frustrations, but those quickly fade away, and the moments of strolling through a lovely city on a cool, autumn evening, with beautiful, soft light lingers in the memory for much, much longer. The city becomes eternal in my imagination. Prague lives in my mind as mystical city of soft light and spires, further emphasized by a golden haze of happy and idealistic memories.
This is not the Prague of reality, where the city sits balanced between Old Europe and modern times. Rather, this is a Prague that sits gently in my imagination, where it lives like a perfect dream. The photographs in this portfolio offer a glimpse into my precious imaginings of what Prague was about – one that soars over the red rooftops in a golden, hazy memory of an idyllic travel story.