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‹ Photo Notes · 16 ledna, 2014
Well then. The holidays are behind us, half of January is gone, there’s no snow anywhere, and even the traditional December madness has pretty much faded away. It didn’t affect me much, because after a very demanding year I had planned December as a period of rest and at least partly managed to stick to it. And as you can see, I stretched it out until mid-January, although reduced activity doesn’t mean I’m doing nothing.
Last year was very busy, and if I didn’t deeply hate the word hectic, I’d use it. I think the word hectic is most often used by slackers; with that one word they signal that nobody works as much as they do, and at the same time excuse the fact that they get nothing done and can’t be relied on. Even I didn’t manage everything I wanted, but I managed quite a lot, and I assessed the rest and told myself I won’t stress about it; I do this because I love it and have no intention of spoiling it for myself, otherwise I could just as well make a living at it.
Somewhat better would probably be the word successful, but that is rather worn out too and suits a CV or the New Year’s (now actually Christmas) speech of a state employee in the job position of president of the republic.
2013 was good, fine, great, pleasant…
I met and got to know lots of new interesting people from various countries, not only in the field of photography and not only because of photography. And what’s more, some of them I may perhaps dare to call my new friends. Among them are editors, gallery owners, photographers, models, top athletes, scientists and also one ambassador. It isn’t important to me what those people are, but what they are like. Alongside them, not behind them, are others who perhaps don’t flaunt titles or extreme career successes, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that I consider meeting them enriching.
To lighten any (unwanted) hint of pathos, I admit that almost without exception they were all able to get at least slightly drunk with me. Or I with them 🙂
A novelty of last year for me were group workshops in Czech. It was a special experience. Although by then I already had many workshops in English behind me and the programme practically didn’t change at all, it was different. Very different. Later I learned from a psychologist friend that saying something in a foreign language is a bit like reciting a poem or acting in a play. Apparently a different part of the brain works in the foreign language … and so on … Thanks, Marti 🙂
In short, I was learning again, and thanks to the native language that prevailed at these events (occasionally Slovak or a Russian and Ukrainian accent was heard), I could listen more. It’s good to listen to people, you always learn something, no matter what …. thank you to everyone who took part in our workshops, I’m glad I got to know you.
When I speak of workshops, I must thank Terezka. We have been shooting together and have been very close as friends since the end of 2009. That is not a short time at all; most model – photographer relationships have a much shorter lifespan, and between us there is real harmony. It is perhaps even a disadvantage how much time we spent together at workshops in 2013, group and individual ones, because we saw each other that much less in private, and during the whole year we shot little and talked little. Let’s hope we’ll make up for it a bit this year.
Emails, emails, emails
In December 2012 I solemnly announced the millionth visitor of these pages. After thirteen months, just these days, another half a million visits were added. Traffic grows every month, there are ups and downs, but you could say that at present a new visitor arrives at these pages approximately every minute. It’s great and of course it brings offers and opportunities, but also a lot of work.
Traffic of these pages over the last 24 hours. A star on the map means a place or town.
After 24 hours it goes out, unless another visit arrives from the same place.
Every day I handle on average 5 emails on the subject of photography and photographing. Mostly they are questions about workshops, printing photos, print or online publication, interviews, offers from models or requests for private shoots. To that must be added reactions on social networks. I answer everyone.
Partly because of that there wasn’t much time and energy last year for the shooting itself. That is one of the things I’d like to change this year. I won’t stop answering, but I want to be more of a photographer, not a correspondent in the field of photography.
Man proposes, a Japanese changes
Yesterday I happened to come across my own comment from the end of September 2013. It was under an article dealing with the size of the image sensor in digital cameras. I wrote there that I couldn’t imagine going from full format (full frame, the size of a 35mm film frame) back to a smaller sensor (APS-C). I had to laugh and answer my own comment that everything is different now…
Yes, I sold the complete Nikon equipment, which for many years I saw as the only possible path for me, and in November I switched to the Fuji X system. I’ll deal with the details later in a separate article or a series of articles, because it is worth it and because it poured into my veins a new desire to shoot. I’m looking forward to that article or articles myself, and I think you have something to look forward to as well.
In brief
In England and the USA, then in other countries, a new book containing my photographs came out in 2013 – The Mammoth Book of Erotic Photography. It turned out well, I’m happy. Lída has photos there too.
Somewhere in Russia they wrote that I shoot predominantly with Russian models, and others copied it from them. That’s nice, but it’s nonsense, druzja; last year I barely shot with five Russian-speaking models. This year we’ll see; my first model this year comes from Russia and another got in touch a few days ago (got in touch doesn’t yet mean she’ll ever turn up to shoot).
On the hottest day of summer, Lída and I photographed the wedding of our friends Jarda and Martina. This event is worth mentioning because it was a big exception; we don’t shoot weddings. We enjoyed it. But we still don’t shoot them.
Now and then Ďura and I pop out for a beer (two small ones, for the waiter, sometimes it gets a bit out of hand) and give each other a little psychotherapy, you know how it is 🙂
I’m reading a lot of books now. More than ever before. Besides contemporary authors I’m returning to classics I like or to those I used to reject (the trauma of compulsory reading). Dostoevsky is a psycho, Remarque, Tolstoy, Bulgakov or Hašek repeatedly get me; Brown’s Inferno is typically Brownian, but I recommend it; don’t read 50 anything, it’s rubbish – which is why it’s a bestseller…
The year was truly good. Thirteen must be a lucky number!
2014
After a damp New Year’s Eve it began quite ordinarily. Unexpectedly we got up without a hangover and, as expected, a model didn’t turn up. It happens. Four days later the second didn’t turn up. It happens. The next day another came, arranged from one hour to the next. Her move to my place took 8 seconds – she came in slippers, down the stairs from the floor below us. It happens.
I plan, let’s call it a resolution, to shoot more this year. And of course I want to shoot better. To learn, to be inspired (but not to steal), and to give myself pleasure.
You can already sign up for this year’s workshops. There will be some, and there will be one big change. I’m finishing the workshop calendar for the whole year. There won’t be many, but you’ll have the chance to choose in advance which date suits you best.
2014 will be a round year. My son Jirka will celebrate fifteen, my dad Jirka seventy, it will be ten years since I washed up in Prague for good and began to devote myself seriously to shooting, and ten years since Lída and I met and found out we were close. To a large extent it is thanks to her what a great year I had again and how well I’m living the beginning of this one.
In short, I’m lucky in the people around me. Thank you.
Have a nice day and a nice year, everyone 🙂
P.S.: … and nothing but fine people around!