When it comes to a new look at travel photography, something may be afoot.
Some of a city's most interesting, intricate and individual details might just be found under your feet.
During a recent seven-country trip to central and eastern Europe, I felt my head constantly swiveling around as I gazed at and photographed the history, architecture, design and landmarks of Dresden's Altstadt (Old Town) District.
And then I noticed my wife, Cheryl — standing and looking down through the viewfinder of her camera at seemingly nothing but the ground.
Come to find out, she had noticed one of the city's decorative manhole covers, with the "Dresden" name prominently displayed on the metalwork.
She thought it would make a nice, easily recognizable addition to our digital images of the city.
From there, a family photo fad was born — we were ever on the lookout for distinctive manhole covers as we traveled on to Prague, Czech Republic; Vienna, Austria; Budapest, Hungary; Warsaw, Poland; Kyiv, Ukraine; and Moscow, Russia.
Just as our daughter had a penchant for photographing windows and doors during her summer studying in Europe, we were on a man(hole) hunt.
In our whirlwind visits that allowed quick stops at a couple of key, accessible tourist sites in each city, we were equally on the lookout for lower attractions. And quite honestly, it felt a little strange at first, making a conscious effort to veer off a tourist-laden walkway and taking a deliberate glance at a huge, flat chunk of metal embedded into the street.
We found several fancy versions each in Prague and Budapest and adequate representations in Vienna and Warsaw.
But in our stops in the former Soviet Union cities of Kyiv and Moscow, all we could find were rather nondescript versions — Kyiv manhole covers with a spiraling type of a design and Red Square covers in Moscow with a cobblestone-like pattern and different letters of the Cyrillic alphabet, perhaps different letters signifying access to a different type of utility.
After returning home, we found our little novelty was so not novel, particularly for European cities. Because they are much denser and have higher foot traffic than their American counterparts, European cities are well-known for elaborate manhole covers.
But U.S. manhole covers can be more than merely functional metalwork. Manhole covers both in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., respectively have been the subjects of coffee-table art books.
Even Salt Lake City produced its own fashionable commemorative manhole cover for the 2002 Winter Olympics — they can still be found throughout the downtown area.
And type "manhole cover" into Flickr.com — the photo-sharing and photo-storage website — and you can find a group under that phrase that consists of 1,116 members and more than 12,500 photos and counting.
For now, enjoy the comparatively few photos of our European findings.
And maybe you'll find yourself traveling in the future and dropping your gaze downward as you come upon a manhole.
e-mail: taylor@desnews.com