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Photographic Weekend - World Press Photo and Lanckorona

Saturday saw a visit to the World Press Photo exhibition at Bunkier Sztuki (The Art Bunker).

This little outing was organised by the Kraków Photographic Group, so it was a nice chance to meet up with fellow members for a chat about future group activities.

I arrived in the city centre slightly the worse for wear, more through tiredness than the effects of alcohol. Luckily I recognised one of the members taking photos on the Planty and we went into the designated meeting place (Bunkier Cafe) together. After a half an hour or so half a dozen or so of us were assembled and ready to go and check out the exhibition. My fellow exhibition-goers waiting patiently as I wolfed down some badly-needed food.

The exhibition was interesting enough. Probably 200 or so world-class photos selected from tens of thousands of entrants. Before going to the exhibition I had tried to download the Android application which can be used to give audio description for each exhibited photo. Alas, it failed to install on my phone. It was a pity, because for some reason (probably overwork) my eyesight was blurry and reading the captions next to each photo proved difficult.

A variety of themes were explored by the photos; death, suffering, grief, homosexuality, civil unrest, sport, nature and many more. After a leisurely stroll round the photos (taking approximately an hour) we went downstairs to the cafe and to continue our group discussion. At the foot of the stairs we were direct to a multimedia exhibition which provided some light relief for ten minutes or so.

So, back to the cafe and talk of future events and even the prospect of our own exhibition. I took the opportunity to ingest some vitamins and nutrients in the form of a Chwila Jagodowa (Blueberry Moment). This certainly helped and I was beginning to feel almost human again.

Saturday evening saw more drinks with the Let's Talk in English Group at the Beer Gallery. I limited myself to two drinks, it would have been more if they had my favourite cider available as usual.

Sunday present another photo opportunity. One of the other members of the group had invited me to come to Lanckorona (a small village 40km or so out of Kraków) to take some photos. The weather turned out to be fantastic. While I was waiting for my lift I took a nice picture of the skyscraper (well almost a skyscraper) near my flat. The sun was low in the sky. The muted colours were incredible and smoothly graduated. Anyway, I turned it to black and white and posted it to Facebook. Then the real photography trip started when my lift arrived.

After a relatively short drive we arrived in the square in Lanckorona. Plenty of other tourists and photographers were enjoying the fine weather too. Our photo walk took in (amongst other things) the woods, the castle ruins, the quaint narrow streets lined with wooden cottages (passing the square a several times on the way). The photo session finished with an ice cream whilst waiting for the sun to come out so that we could take some photos of the bronze statue in the square.

It was a very pleasant afternoon (see the photos here). I returned home for all of five minutes before setting off on foot for dinner, Scrabble and the Polish meeting (which I was hosting) at Dynia. The Polish meeting which had died a death recently was a success and we had filled the part of the pub designated for us. I returned home after well over five hours on my feet, tired but happy.

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