The Sedlec Ossuary

This small and unassuming church in the Czech Republic was well worth the daytrip out of Prague and into the countryside. While Europe is littered with churches in general, this was one we made a point of going out of our way for. Cemeteries that are hundreds of years old often have a problems when they fill up and people keep dying, so the basement ossuary had long ago been filled with exhumed skeletons.
In the 1870s a woodcarver was paid by the ruling family to organize the bones and in so doing created some of the macabre art imaginable. The chandalier below contains at least one of every bone in the human body and the ceiling is lined with skulls. Each corner of the room featuers a huge stack of limb bones and there are four pedastals with the most sinister cherubs playing trumpets you can imagine.
Rounding out the collection is the family crest of the ruling family made out of bone. When your family crest already involves a crow pecking the eyes out of a Turk, you have a pretty sinister reputation, but when you have that enlarged to 12 feet tall and made entirely of human remains you are treading well into supervillain territory.
Needless to say, with her interest in all things skeletal, Kathryn was in hog heaven in this particular place. I'm not sure I would ever want to meet the God that has a house like that, but its a fascinating place to see either way.

Denman Street Summer Time Lapse

Last summer when Kathryn was out in the field I left my camera running on an intervalometer for 24 hours so that the camera took a picture every minute from midnight on July 13th to midnight on July 14th.

That time lapse is embedded below, or you can check out a higher quality version of it here.

Its a fairly unremarkable day on Denman street as seen from our bedroom window, but I think even mundane time lapses are pretty incredible things. Even though we didn't have the striking clouds I would have liked that day, watching the shadows of the buildings and the window washing crew across the street is still pretty cool. I'm hoping to do a lot more of these this summer so stay posted if you like this sort of stuff as well.

The Soviet Bunker

When Kathryn and I were in the city of Riga in Latvia, one of the features offered by our hostel was a visit to an old Soviet bunker which had been converted into a shooting gallery. The two of us and 4 British guys (which we believe were on a bachelor party) were led across town and into an innocuous shed which was the entrance into the bunker. The stairway down is shown below.
The picture of us below is from the lobby area of the range and had all manner of weird guns and gear that you could pose and have your picture taken with. The experience itself involved 5 shots from each of a 9mm pistol, AK-47 and a pump-action shotgun.
Although photography in the bunker was not permitted, one of the guys in our group took a quick shot and I was able to get a copy of it afterwards. Kathryn then proceeded to put all us men to shame with shotgun headshots and a little line of assault rifle fire across the heart of her target. Meanwhile the rest of us bungled with one of the other guys shooting my target by mistake and the lot of us heading back afterwards with a lot less testosterone sloshing about than on the way down.