Afsoon is a visual artist from Tehran. She was in Prague last week for an international visual design event that I was photographing. We hit it off together, and arranged a portrait session. It was cool and rainy in Prague, so we had to reschedule her portrait session twice, but finally we found an hour without rain. The sun even came out for a moment.
Afsoon likes graffiti and old doors. I immediately thought of the John Lennon wall and the charming area surrounding it. I had been there before and recalled it was a little hard to find. It’s located in a secluded square near the French Embassy. Its fame began in 1980, when an anonymous artist painted a portrait of John Lennon, along with Beatles song lyrics, after his assasination. At this time, western images were banned here, but that didn’t stop people from adding their own messages to the wall. It soon became an outlet for anti-communist graffiti. Now it’s more of a call to activism, and is popular with tourists and artists.
We started out across the Charles Bridge, a famous and historic bridge over the Vltava river, built in the 14th century.
It took us some time to find the secluded Lennon Wall. It began to rain along the way, but we found some lovely doorways to stay dry.
We asked for directions, and may have been laughed at for walking in circles!
It was sprinkling when we found it, but still crowded. It took a while to get a photo without other people.
We continued our walk. Then we saw this beautiful green door.
We were interrupted by police and a security guard. “Do you not know this is the French Embassy?” Moving on…
We walked back across the Charles Bridge as Afsoon returned to the design event.
