PHOTO OF THE DAY - 12/08/2008

Brno, Czech Republic

In December of 2003, I went to the Czech Republic for six months, where I lived in the city of Brno and found a couple jobs teaching English as a second language. Not only was this my first European experience–having grown up in Florida, it was also my first "real" winter. It may not have snowed as often as I would have liked, but every so often I'd walk through town on my way to work and find the streets covered in light snow.

The streets never stayed white. The snow always melted fast, and what little there was quickly became a slushy, sloppy mess and got muddied up with footprints and tire tracks. Walking to work became a challenge. There was ice to worry about, and the sidewalks weren't the flat sections of pavement I was used to, but cobblestone walkways built by hand, hundreds of years ago–brick by brick–and therefore, far from perfect. There were bricks missing or broken, and rounded depressions everywhere that formed puddles.

I was lucky if I made it to work with dry shoes.

But it was during these walks to work and my explorations of the city that I began to really look at the puddles–began to really stare into the puddles. I saw centuries-old architecture from new angles, trees growing down instead of up...and of course, people.

I would see them coming down the cobblestone sidewalk, and point my camera not at them, but into the water. Often times, they walked right on past without a glance at me, but occasionaly they looked at me odd, and would glance down to see where my camera was aimed. And by then it was too late.

Click.