I was born in 1972 in Krupka, Czech Republic and have been living there all my life. As a child I loved landscape, I like travelling and finding new interesting places.
As almost every person, I took a camera for almost every trip and vacation to make interesting shots of different places. So at the beginning it was just a travelling with compact camera. I started to think more about photography in 2000. That time I get a book about photography as a gift and after few months later I bought a first film camera Pentax. I enter the world of digital photography 4 years later and at the beginning of 2006 I had my first digital camera Canon.
I was completely absorbed by photography and from that time my every trip and vacation is subordinated by photography. I don’t have any photographic education. I’m self-taught, which went the way of trial/error. Landscape and travel photography has a lot in common. I was travelling a lot, so travelling brought me to serious shooting. Firstly I traveled and occasionally took a documentary picture from the places that I visited to have a memorial picture. Now I’m submitting all my travels to photography. Before the trip, I find out what are the attractions in the destination, what is the best time for photography, or where the sun rises and goes down. All of this is very important for successful photography.
My photos I presented at the copyright shows in the Czech republic and recently I managed to obtain several awards in photographic competitions (Neutral Density Photography Awards, SIENA International Photo Awards, IPA Photography Awards, Fine Art Photography Awards,…). From the year 2010 I have been organizing landscape photography workshops (www.phototours.cz) in the Czech Republic (Czech Switzerland, South Moravia, …), the Dolomites, Bavaria, The Netherlands,…
Tips for beginners. Don’t be discouraged by first failure.. Every bad photo, which man can learn from it, can finally lead to better results. So shoot, shoot and shoot!
Photography fills all my free moments. If I have to classify myself to exact category, I am definitely a landscape photographer. Landscape was always passion for me, but recently I identify, that classic color landscape photography looks complicated and orderless for me. That brought me to BW photography, which looks more simple and clearly for me. I think that It is necessary to think about image. Sometimes it just one step, a bit of different angle, time of exposure or choice of shutter speed can really change a future image. When I am going to exact place, mostly I am prepared and I have an idea how I want my image at final view. Of course sometimes it is necessary to improvise, cause one thing is an idea, but reality could be different.
I like symmetry, clearity and simplicity. I try to get all those aspects to my images. Purposely I find simple, clear and symmetrically compositions. I simplify these compositions through weather conditions (fog, rain) and also by lond exposure times using strong ND filters.I would like to visit Iceland and a big dream is to visit Los Glaciares National Park with rock massifs of Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre and then the stunning scenery of New Zealand. But the time will tell if my dreams come true.
As I said at the beginning, I am using Canon. At this time it is Canon EOS 5D Mark II, lenses Canon EF 16-35/4L IS USM, Canon EF 70-200/4L USM and Laowa MF 12mm f/2.8 Zero-D. Almost every images that I made, I used tripod and for most of BW images I used ND filters to extend exposure. Quality of equipment is important for sure, but I think that more important is to perceive a landscape and have a luck for interesting conditions. I take my photos in RAW format and then I process them in Adobe Lightroom and Google Nic Collection (for color photos plugin Viveza and for convert photos to BW plugin Silver Efex). [Official Website]
