I will always associate November in Bratislava with romance. Sylwia and I originally met at Bratislava Photo Month some 8 or 9 years ago. So of course it was time to go and revisit old haunts, and what better way than to go to the portfolio review event at Photo Month! So that's what we did. This time, we kept bumping into one of our heroes, Martin Parr, first of all in a cafe, then in the street, then in our hotel (of course, it turned out he was staying there). Of course, he doesn't know us from Adam, but he must have thought that we were stalking him.

And I had the most extraordinary morale boost, when I was awarded third prize in the portfolio review event!

Suitably encouraged, we went for a stroll over the Novy Most and into Petrzalka district, which I saw on the horizon years ago and have always wanted to visit. It is a monstruous monument to socialist architecture. Vaclav Havel, who became the Czech President after the end of communism, said of Petrzalka:

"I saw the industrial complex of the Slovnaft chemical factory and the giant Petrzalka housing estate right behind it. The view was enough to make me realize that for decades our statesmen and political leaders did not look or did not want to look out of the windows of their airplanes."

So of course I took some pictures. Which I haven't had a chance to prepare, but here are some rough contact scans from my flatbed.