Jon Searles' photos with the keyword: panelak

I did a little bit of research on this car, and concluded that it's probably a 1934 Chevrolet Master Sedan. It was parked in Sidliste Opatov, of all places, where an old Tatra of about the same age was being unloaded from a truck. I didn't ask what it was doing in Prague, but seeing a pre-war American car other than a Ford is quite rare in Europe, especially since pre-war Chevys are rare even in America.

Haje was just as buried as Krc. One of the problems I had in scanning the negs was that the shots were a little bit too bright, but my scanner was also a factor. As you can see, a slight post process is all that the shots needed.

This was another shot taken in Haje. There was a certain about of snow still coming down when I took this, creating a slight haze.

I almost didn't include this shot, but after seeing it closer up in Gimp, and post processing it a bit, it grew on me. This isn't an angle I've shot from before, even though I've so far photographed Haje more than any other sidliste. I keep pressuring myself to do places like Krc, Opatov, Chodov, and so on, but I guess there are still opportunities in Haje even after so many shots.

This was the view from the bus stop over the Opatov Metro. I was actually on my bike, though, so I wasn't waiting for the bus.

Another adventure that I had towards the end of the summer of 2009 was my exploration of the bike trail system around Prague. Ideally, if you're going to use a bike for transportation, the deeper inside a city you are, the better. Prague has it backwards, though. In the city centre, bike couriers are referred to as "organ donors," but in the suburbs, there is a bike trail system almost as extensive and complete as the road system, going pretty much anywhere you would want to go. I decided to work up to riding to Branik, but at the end of my adventures I did more than that. This trip was my first bike trip, when I only made it as far as Krc, but I took this shot with my cameraphone as I was leaving Haje. Surprisingly, I don't have many good shots of the "back" (to me, anyway) of this panelak, my favourite of the Haje panelaks because of the clock on either side, plus the fact that it's really a pair of towers with a bridge at the top (which you can't see in this shot).

I've attempted this shot in various guises before, but I still like to keep trying. The light of the setting sun on these two panelaks can be really eye-catching when they're backed by storm clouds, as they often are.

Chodov is a little bit different in character from the other Sidliste projects, with red paint and logos on the buildings to identify them.

I just took this shot because I liked the look of the setting sun on the buildings. Often Haje gives me these opportunities, and I've never quite figured out why.

In the post-Communist era, most of the Sidliste projects have been modernised and rebuilt, and most of these rebuilds have included colorful repainting. This is what happened when I took the relatively bleak winter scene below, and cranked the contrast and saturation up.

Sidliste housing projects surround Prague in all directions, and any good movie about Prague in the 1970's or 1980's will generally include scenes of their construction, which was a constant fixture of life at that time. Today, most are still occupied and doing well, in sharp contrast to East Germany, where many of their equivalents have been torn down.

Here's an alternate to the other Lomo that I just posted, with another larger, but more moderate light leak.

I know that I've got a lot of these taken in Haje, but Haje does get some pretty impressive sunsets, so I've done a lot of shots there. This one is unfortunately marred by that light leak down the middle. Lomo issues again.

I saw this light and these colors while testing my N80 for the first time in March, and I knew I had to take this shot. These buildings are Panelak apartment blocks in Sidliste Haje, a Communist-era housing project in the south of Prague that has seen a lot of renovation and modernisation in recent years.

This was a random shot that I took when I saw the opportunity. The sun was going down, and amazingly, even though there were no holes in the building and wall across the street, there was this amazing dotted light down the side of this building.

I took this in Sidliste Haje, Prague. Sidliste Haje was a Communist-era housing project intended to house as many of the "proletariat" as possible, in the most modern and luxurious conditions possible (acceptable?) under the Communist system. Surprisingly, the project seems to have succeeded, at least over the long-term. Almost all of the Sidliste complexes consisted of "Panelak" apartment blocks like these, built from standard designs and prefab materials. Many people say that they're ugly, but they're surprisingly well-equipped and insulated. In addition, many have been refurbished to a degree that would have been unimaginable pre-1989. Some of them, as in Sidliste Barrandov, are even high-rent. For that matter, most of Haje is in like-new condition, if you ignore the (post-1989) vandalism, and many Sidliste projects have even been expanded post-1989. I'm not aware of whether these are original Panelaky refurbished, or new builds, but the design is more or less the same. For all the criticism of this type of architecture, the Czechs have had no problem with continuing to build them in the post-Communist era. -Jon

Sidliste Repy is a Communist-era housing project consisting of "Panelak" apartment blocks built to standard designs. Although many other Sidliste projects have been fully renovated and modernized, Republiky is still a work in progress, and still has a great deal of its Communist-era grime. Here I've taken a picture of the tram terminus, where arriving passengers get off the tram before it goes onto the turning loop.