Travel Tuesday – Tallinn, Estonia

I have a bit of a soft spot for doors ( and windows too, for that matter, but here I’m keeping it with doors) and of all the places I’ve visited Tallinn , the capital of Estonia, has some of the best. In the old part of the city nearly every door has something interesting  about it.

Tallinn was one of my “12 cities”. This project has had to take a bit of a back seat over the last few months. With the whole moving house saga there just wasn’t enough time to work on everything. But now that I am a bit more settled I’m starting to pick up some of the threads and working to get prints prepared from all the cities.

Of course, an esssential element to my travels in any city is to find a great cafe. When I am working on a Polaroid I need a cup of something hot to warm the photograph on before I start to manipulate it. And of course a bit of space to work away on it quietly as sometimes it can take an hour or so to do this part of the process. But to make it into my little book as a favourite there needs to be a bit more than just a hot beverage. This little cafe , Chocolaterie de Pierre ,makes the grade on quite a few levels. Tucked away in a courtyard, there are seats outside, however it was a little chilly when I was there so I opted for the cosy space inside. Colourful and eclectic with interesting objects and a rather red velvety  theatrical mood, the cakes are delicious, but the hot chocolate is what it is particularly famous for . Another comprehensive review of this cafe is over here at Europe a la Carte. A little return visit might be in order.

“12 City Project” Update – Tallinn

( * You  can sign up for my “soon-to-launch” Ezine from the link on the right or from here – and receive two downloadable postcards* )

I am quite enjoying that my travel schedule has become a little less hectic now that I’ve finished shooting the “12 City Project”.  And one of the things that I’ve learned in the course of doing this project is that I  much prefer “being in other places” to travelling to  get there. Or that the most enjoyable travel  is done by train or even bus.  Also, in order to fit the work around other commitments I thought it would be easiest  to do one city a month. In fact, that created a lot of racing around and  I would intend future projects  to involve less trips but be of longer duration.

Going to Tallinn was slightly “two for the price of one” as I flew to Riga and travelled to Tallinn by bus. Very convenient and good bus service, bookable online in advance which I really recommend. ( Train travel between the two countries isn’t very practical). Riga looked quite amazing from a decorative “Art Nouveau” point of view, but for the purposes of my Polaroid project I’m glad I persevered and went on up to Tallinn. The combination of a well preserved medieval centre and the city walls with protective towers were perfect subjects.

This is the first of the Tallin Polaroids to be processed. As ever I’ve been fighting the “green layer” and trying to get the colours back to something more pleasing.  This one is taken from one of the towers on the city wall. You can’t walk round the whole city but you can follow certain sections and go up into the towers.

Celebrating Completion – First look at Tallinn

Light blogging today as I’ve come back from my travels with a bug. But despite that , feel pretty upbeat that I have completed the photographic part of my “12 City Project”. When I started off a year ago it seemed quite an ambitious undertaking, to get myself to 12 different cities for more or less a week each, at monthly intervals. But here I am a year later and I’ve met the target.

During the photo part I deliberately avoided giving too much thought to what I will do with all these images but now I will be focusing on “what next”. I still have  a lot of processing to complete, even from the earlier cities and then I need to decide how I will use them. I’ve had some encouragement to compile them into a book form so at the moment that is what I’ll explore.