Strahov Monastery Library

The photo in this story is of the Philosophical Hall, part of the library of the massive Strahov Monastery in the hills above Prague in the Czech Republic which I just got around to processing. Strahov Monastery was founded in 1143, and is a Premonstratensian abbey.

It has been in more or less continuous operation since then (with a short break for the Jan Huss matter when it was attacked and pillaged by the citizens of Prague) until the communist takeover. This part of the library (the Philosophical Hall) was built in the late 1700s.

Under the communists it was turned into a National Literature Memorial. After the velvet revolution, the Strahov Monastery was returned to the Premonstratensian diocese, with restoration still underway in the famous libraries and also the monks devotional efforts to brewing quality beer.

Strahov Monastery Library © Harold Davis

In Prague, my apartment was a short distance from Strahov, and I listened to the monastery bells through the night, and ate at the open-to-the-public refectory most days. The specialty was beer, and everything was cooked in monastery beer, from beer-battered ribs, to beer-flavored ice cream.

To photograph the library required buying a special pass. I was allowed to use my tripod, but it was hard to get a few moments with an unblocked view into the Philosophical Hall, and ultimately I removed the other tourists, their cameras and their backpacks, from the photo using the Photoshop retouching techniques explained in my Photoshop Darkroom 2 (the major case study in that book was taken up with removing a friend’s leg and foot from a spiral stair in Havana, Cuba).

Related image: Great Hall Heidelberg University.

Some other images from Prague: Spires of Prague; Inside the Old Market Tower; House of Mirrors.