This is just a strictly personal evaluation, based on my individual tastes and in the way I perceive certain visual emotions.
So once I started with this disclaimer, now I feel free to say that Josef Koudelka is the greatest living
photographer.
Koudelka is Czech, he was born in a small Moravian village, and then he moved to Prague, where, in 1968,
he took amazing photos during the Soviet invasion after the short period of the Prague spring.
He could not sign his photos with his name, for obvious political reasons after the repression, but those photos were published in many international newspapers and magazines as the work of “anonymous photographer of Prague” and in 1969 he won the Capa’s award in New York.
He was worried to be recognized in his country and he found the way to leave the country with an excuse and moved to France, like many other Czech intellectuals during that gloomy and dark period ( but this is, obviously another story).
He would have come back to his country only after twenty years, after the velvet revolution which marked the end of Communist regime in Czechoslovakia.
At very beginning of his “exile” Josef Koudelka was invited to an important photographic exhibition in London, organized by Cornell Capa and at the end of the evening he was asked to join all the other photographers for a dinner in a rather formal restaurant.
At the door of the restaurant he was stopped by the maître, because he didn’t wear any tie, someone manage to lend him one, but the supercilious and formal maître was not satisfied yet, because he considered that the style of the clothes Koudelka wore was totally inadequate to the high standard of the restaurant, so the poor Czech was left alone on the sidewalk, the heaven doors were apparently closed for him…
Then one of the photographers, who were already sitting at the smart table in the luxurious restaurant, realized what was happening, he got up and asked the maître what the matter was and once he received the embarrassed justification, he looked at the maître wearing an impeccable tuxedo and told him:
“He – and pointed and the very shy Koudelka out of the glass door - is dressed much better than you, who looks like a penguin clown, if he cannot come in, we all will join him out!”
All the photographers followed his example and in a spontaneous fit of solidarity, they all left the pompous restaurant and ended having dinner all together with Koudelka in a very easy-going little Greek tavern.
The photographer who had reacted this way was Henri Cartier-Bresson.
One year later, in Paris, Koudolka went to visit him to show him his photos, he was a bit worried, because he knew Cartier-Bresson didn’t like wide angle, while most of his photos were taken with wide-angle, to take advantage of the little light he had in particular circumstances.
But the master immediately liked the work of the Czech photographer, and asked him for two photos as present and hung them up on a wall of his home.
So once I started with this disclaimer, now I feel free to say that Josef Koudelka is the greatest living
photographer.
Koudelka is Czech, he was born in a small Moravian village, and then he moved to Prague, where, in 1968,
he took amazing photos during the Soviet invasion after the short period of the Prague spring.
He could not sign his photos with his name, for obvious political reasons after the repression, but those photos were published in many international newspapers and magazines as the work of “anonymous photographer of Prague” and in 1969 he won the Capa’s award in New York.
He was worried to be recognized in his country and he found the way to leave the country with an excuse and moved to France, like many other Czech intellectuals during that gloomy and dark period ( but this is, obviously another story).
He would have come back to his country only after twenty years, after the velvet revolution which marked the end of Communist regime in Czechoslovakia.
At very beginning of his “exile” Josef Koudelka was invited to an important photographic exhibition in London, organized by Cornell Capa and at the end of the evening he was asked to join all the other photographers for a dinner in a rather formal restaurant.
At the door of the restaurant he was stopped by the maître, because he didn’t wear any tie, someone manage to lend him one, but the supercilious and formal maître was not satisfied yet, because he considered that the style of the clothes Koudelka wore was totally inadequate to the high standard of the restaurant, so the poor Czech was left alone on the sidewalk, the heaven doors were apparently closed for him…
Then one of the photographers, who were already sitting at the smart table in the luxurious restaurant, realized what was happening, he got up and asked the maître what the matter was and once he received the embarrassed justification, he looked at the maître wearing an impeccable tuxedo and told him:
“He – and pointed and the very shy Koudelka out of the glass door - is dressed much better than you, who looks like a penguin clown, if he cannot come in, we all will join him out!”
All the photographers followed his example and in a spontaneous fit of solidarity, they all left the pompous restaurant and ended having dinner all together with Koudelka in a very easy-going little Greek tavern.
The photographer who had reacted this way was Henri Cartier-Bresson.
One year later, in Paris, Koudolka went to visit him to show him his photos, he was a bit worried, because he knew Cartier-Bresson didn’t like wide angle, while most of his photos were taken with wide-angle, to take advantage of the little light he had in particular circumstances.
But the master immediately liked the work of the Czech photographer, and asked him for two photos as present and hung them up on a wall of his home.
I don’t dare to post any photos of Koudelka, here while I usually post my average pictures, but you can easily find his photos on the net, if you don’t know them yet.
I chose only this symbolic one, because it’s one of the two photos Cartier-Bresson asked Koudelka to give him as present.
It’s a photo of 1963, taken in Slovakia, the melancholy candid portrait of a young man in handcuffs.
I chose only this symbolic one, because it’s one of the two photos Cartier-Bresson asked Koudelka to give him as present.
It’s a photo of 1963, taken in Slovakia, the melancholy candid portrait of a young man in handcuffs.
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