Fog on the Charles Bridge

Fog on the Charles Bridge

I know there is no real Shangri-La, but I always harbored the thought that maybe, maybe, Prague would be the closest thing to it, should I ever venture to return to my old Bohemian haunts. Working there in the ’90s as a photojournalist was exhilarating, though sometimes frustrating, but it never failed to amaze. I landed there in February of ‘96, on a day that a bomb threat had cleared the airport, and as I stepped around the police tape and looked for a familiar face, I had a hunch that I was in for an adventure. A photographer named Vlad picked me up in his grandfather’s old Skoda 120. Along with him came Matt, an American photographer who we dropped off at the castle to photograph the long queue of mourners as they shuffled through the courtyards of Prague castle to pay respects to the recently deceased Olga Havlova, first lady and wife of dissident playright turned president, Vaclav Havel.

Prague treated me well. I worked alongside some incredibly talented photojournalists and writers for nearly eight years. We broke a lot of stories. Some stories broke our hearts. But it was all good – any obstacles were overcome with optimism and a good dose of naivete.

I stayed on until 2003. By then, the country had a new president and a new place within the European Union. For reasons of my own, I’d decided it was time to move on. It was a melancholy departure, but something I needed to do. I’m not one of those ex-pats who found they couldn’t live outside Prague (watch the mocumentary Rex-Patriates) and returned to normalize themselves into daily Bohemian life. I found a happy place in Australia. I don’t regret leaving.

So – Shangri-La. I returned to Prague for three weeks in July, with no expectations. I knew it had changed, and it wasn’t just the proliferation of Starbucks that had tilted the Bohemian kingdom on its axis. The optimism of the ’90s was long-gone, replaced by a begrudging sense of fate and a prescription to consumerism to mask the onset of middle-class ennui. Prague is over, I thought. It’s just another European city.

But try selling all that hum-bug to 20 Australian visual media students. They would have no part of it. They’ve run off and found their own adventures, their own stories, their own bit of Prague. It’s been great seeing the old city through new eyes, new approaches. And it’s been fun introducing them to old favourites, like breakfasts at the Cafe Louvre and coffees at the Slavia. It was great coaching them through their first night shoots at Prague Castle – nowhere in Australia could they confront themselves with such grand architecture – so many choices for lines and form to photograph. Simple things like the roof of the main train station staggered them with its detail. But it wasn’t all travel photography. They each dug into a story, working alongside Czech researchers, finding out first hand about the country’s recent history, from StB (secret police) files to Holocaust survivors and the resurgence of Jewish culture in Prague. They really got into it.

I’m glad I returned, and I’m glad I brought some new blood with me. Though they’ll never experience the Prague that was so famously coined by my late editor, Alan Levy, “The Left Bank of the ’90s,” they’ve experienced a new Prague, and made something of it. I’m looking forward to re-discovering the city again. Thanks guys.

View my students’ stories about the twentieth anniversary of the Velvet Revolution here.