STILLSCENES | Beyond the Velvet (Revolution)

Beyond the Velvet (Revolution): post-communist Europe in photographs.

It began in 1992 when I arrived in Prague to work as staff photographer at Czechoslovakia's first English-Language newspaper Prognosis, well after the country's Velvet Revolution that brought down communism in 1989. At that time, I never thought I'd be spending nearly half of my life in the Czech Republic, living, working and later getting married and raising a family. Although I had never been there before, I felt an incredible sense of comfort and belonging as well as the feeling that this journey was meant to be.

It was an exciting time to be a photojournalist in Prague. The Iron Curtain had fallen, a new democracy was forming, the old Czechoslovakia was preparing to split, massive reconstruction projects were getting off the ground and expats from all over the world were flooding in to experience "The Left Bank of the 90s". It seemed like there was a picture to be made around every corner - and there usually was.

Over the years through these photographs, I've tried to capture the unbridled sense of excitement, intrigue and wild abandon of the era, framed in the timeless beauty this region of Europe holds. I have consumed her and she has consumed me - and it continues to this day. Kafka was right, "Prague doesn't let go. This little mother has claws."

Andel (Angel) Station

PRAGUE, Czechoslovakia - riders on the city's subway system enter and exit the station under a marble mural of working peasants holding high the hammer and sickle. Designed in the Soviet style, it’s original name was Moskevská after the city of Moscow and later renamed after the city district where it is located. The mural has since been covered over. - Summer 1992

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Autobazar

JIRKOV, Czechoslovakia - Used car lot where vintage WW II tanks are sold alongside used cars. - Fall 1992

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Kominik

PRAGUE, Czechoslovakia - A kominik, or chimney sweep in Czech, takes a cigarette break under the watchful eye of Lenin. - Winter 1992

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Reconstruction Workers

PRAGUE, Czech Republic - Workers wait to load wheelbarrows filled with cement onto a construction elevator. - Summer 1992

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Roofers

PRAGUE, Czech Republic - Workers install terracotta roofing tiles to a newly reconstructed building in Mala Strana district, or Lesser Quarter in Czech. - Spring 1997

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Steelworkers

KLADNO, Czech Republic - Workers in the control room at the Poldi steelworks take a cigarette break. - Winter 1993

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Babi in the Window

PRAGUE, Czechoslovakia - 1992

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Cechuv Most

PRAGUE, Czech Republic - Cechuv bridge looking into the Old Town district. - Spring 1998

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Stuck in Traffic

PRAGUE, Czech Republic - A motorist waits for a repair truck to deliver his rear wheel during rush hour in the Holesovice district. - Summer 1994

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Temelin Protest - Summer 1994

TEMELIN, Czech Republic – A protester from the Hnuti Duha or Rainbow Coalition, handcuffed to the gate of the Temelin nuclear power plant, blocks the entrance during the group’s protest of the facility. Their goal was to impede the power plant from going online and bring awareness to the dangers of its untested combination of Soviet and Western design.

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Babi with Chicken

NEAR TEMELIN, Czech Republic - Babi, or grandma in Czech, cleans chickens in the courtyard of her farm. She and her husband have lived in this small village outside of Temelin all their lives. The village now lies within the 5km ‘safety zone’ of the new Temelin nuclear power plant, so they must leave the farm they built and move to an apartment in town to comply with government orders. - Summer 1994

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Cross and Cooling Towers

TYN NAD VLTAVOU, Czech Republic - Roadside cross near the Temelin nuclear power plant. - Fall 1993

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Tram Kiss

PRAGUE, Czech Republic. - 1994

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Nove Butovice Skyline

PRAGUE, Czech Republic – A family takes an afternoon stroll in Prague’s Nove Butovice district, behind them, a new subway extension tube cuts through the skyline of this communist-built residential housing district. - 1994

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Strada Republicii

BRASOV, Romania - This pedestrian street cuts through the city's largely Baroque old town and is the hub of Brasov's social and commercial life. - Fall 1999

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Sunday Stroll

SIBIU, Romania. Fall - 1999

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Dining Car

TRANSYLVANIA, Romania - Afternoon light filters through thick smoke in the dining car of a train headed to Bucharest from Sighisoara. - Fall 1999

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Citadel Square

SIGHISOARA, Romania - Early morning fog rolls through the 13th century streets in this small Transylvanian town. It was here where the region's legendary prince, Vlad Tepes, better known as Dracula, was born in 1431. - Fall 1999

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The Liar's Bridge - (Podul Minciunilor)

SIBIU, Romania - Constructed in 1859, this bridge, first named The Iron Bridge, was later nicknamed The Liar's Bridge. Legend has it that if a person tells a lie while standing on it, the iron structure will collapse. - Fall 1999

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Waiting for the Bride

SIBIU, Romania – Wedding party friends and family wait for the bride and groom to leave the city’s Orthodox Cathedral. - Fall 1999

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Brasov Station

BRASOV, Romania - A train conductor waits for his train in the main station. - Fall 1999

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Vaclavak

PRAGUE, Czech Republic - Fast food on a rainy night in Wenceslas Square. A favorite haunt of late-night revelers. - Spring 1999

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The Blue Lagoon

GRINDAVIK, Iceland - One of Iceland’s biggest tourist attractions, the Blue Lagoon, lies in the middle of a vast lava field where this cloudy pool of effluent from the Svartsengi geothermal power station is said to have curative powers. The station is fuelled by seawater that is super-heated as it passes through the molten lava below. Algae thrives in the 158F, 18% saline water that emerges from the station’s pipes but as the water cools, the algae dies, leaving a sort of organic soup. - Spring 1999

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Independence

BRATISLAVA, Czechoslovakia - Holding the Slovak flag high, a woman shows her support for prime minister Vladimir Meciar outside the Slovak parliament building during his signing of the country's Declaration of Sovereignty from Czechoslovakia. - Fall 1992

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King Meciar

BRATISLAVA, Czechoslovakia - Slovak Prime Minister, Vladimir Meciar sings the national anthem in parliament after signing the Slovak Declaration of Sovereignty, effectively splitting the Czechoslovak state. - Fall 1992

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Independence Celebration

DEVINSKA NOVA VES, Czechoslovakia - People gather around the ruins of Devin castle outside the Slovak capital Bratislava to celebrate the signing of the Slovak Declaration of Sovereignty, which effectively split the Czechoslovak state. Fall 1992

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Final Farewell

BRATISLAVA, Czechoslovakia – Slovaks gather around a symbolic coffin of the old Czechoslovak state in SNP Square to pay their last respects. A united country of Czechs and Slovaks since 1918, it split peacefully at midnight New Years Eve 1992, into separate Czech and Slovak republics.

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Arrested

PRAGUE, Czechoslovakia. - 1992

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Buskers

PRAGUE, Czechoslovakia - American ex-pats play their guitars for passersby in the street near Old Town Square, as police officers move in to shut the impromptu concert down.

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Bread Line

PRAGUE, Czech Republic - An early morning line up for baked goods at the local bakery in Strasnice district. - Winter 1998

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