Fix #2 eng by Fix Magazine

Editor's column While we were flying to Prague an idea "to find interesting talented photographers and have a talk with them about photography, art and other stuff" seemed a reckless attempt rather than an elaborate plan. That night boarding Rostov-Prague plane I was filled with fear asking myself: "Where am I going to find those guys?", "Will it be that interesting?" I had millions of questions and no one answer. At the airport in Prague I got that peculiar European feeling of wellbeing and civility. However that feeling left me at the first sight of our hotel. The hotel was part of the deep past. The long-gone Soviet past. As a child I went to Zheleznovodsk resort with my mother. Being there you can feel its former greatness that vanished in the course of time and now requires some restoration work. It was the same here: there was a big cold marble hall, statues and furniture from GDR. Perhaps the staff was the only that made difference as people were nice to you and didn’t express hatred for all living beings. Oh, yes, and there was one more feature distinguishing this "hotel from the past" from my childhood one – The Internet. Having passed some nerve-racking evenings together with my laptop in the hall of "the hotel from the past", I found a few interesting and extraordinary people on Flickr. The fact that my suggestion to meet in person was accepted with great enthusiasm surprised me indeed. "Wow, they haven’t told me off", I was thinking. Having remembered my friends’ stories about photography department in well-known Film and TV School of Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU), I decided to take a chance and meet with somebody who studies at this school. Strangely enough, I managed to do it. It was fascinating to know how they had entered the University, how their style and views on photography had changed during their studies and many other things. People we were talking to asked us a lot of questions about Fix and wished the project every success. It was such a pleasure! It was a pleasure to realize that you are doing something real. I hope that it would be the same pleasure for you to read this edition of Fix magazine.

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Anna Prytkova

Content of the issue

Editor in Chief: Anna Prytkova Managing editors: Olga Bushkova Michael Bushkov

Michal Macura

Interviewers:

Franco H端ller

Michael Bushkov Olga Bushkova Anna Prytkova

Ivana Jasminska

Institute of Creative Photography at Silesian University in Opava

Olga Bushkova Vladimir Vishnevskiy

Film and Television School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU)

Creative editors:

Frano Prochazka

Irina Zaharova

Michal Adamovsky

Vaclav Kyval

Design and Layout:

Anastasia Aniskova Victor Batkovitch Michael Bushkov Veronica Vishnevskaya Vladimir Vishnevskiy Milana Ceeva Translator: Anna Shaposhnikova The use of any materials from the photography magazine "Fix" only by agreement with the editorship. Address: 344022 Rostov-on-Don, 80 Shaumyana street, 3rd floor, Art Photography School

Catalogue FIX: Black and white photography

Color photography

Published photographers

e-mail: info@fixmagazine.ru e-mail for submission photos: photo@fixmagazine.ru Contact us:

Photo on the cover by Alexander Smirnov

FIX #2/2012

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Michal Macura We met Michal in a small Prague café na"Ebel" in the historic downtown. By the time we arrived (oh yes, we were ten minutes late) he had already had a cup of coffee and was examining his I-Pad with interest. Michal spoke steady British English carefully drawing the consonants and stressing "O" sounds in a specific way. His father turned out to grow up in the USA and Michal spent his childhood surrounded by his father’s English-speaking friends. He studied English Literature at the University and now he works for British "Vodafone". It happened so that Michal was the first out of other six photographers we were lucky to talk to during our Czech trip. Feeling our hesitation he, like an experienced lover, was piloting us carefully in the right direction. We were eager to obey. So, you can see what came out of it.

What brand was that? I think it was the Fujica, an old make I picked up from my father’s cupboard. And basically I started taking photographs because my father kind of pushed me in a good sense, because he was always taking photographs and he was developing them in the bathroom. Because we didn’t have a proper darkroom back then.That’s how I started. Then a couple of years later on I grew tired of developing films because it was such a tedious process. I mean, of course, it has its charm for many people, but I’m one of those guys who prefer to take the photographs and then take them straight into the computer and then perhaps edit them there. Because the whole process is much less suffocating. Remember breathing in those vapors in the darkroom, not really part of the attraction for me. Digital also gives you more focus and direction on the photographs you take, you don’t have to focus on the technical aspects that much. When I looked through your Flickr account there were a lot of photos and there were no people on them.

FIX: Hi! Nice to meet you finally! So, the first very common question: Is photography your main occupation?

Yes, very few. It’s not because I don’t shoot people, it's because I don't tend to upload them on the Flickr.

Михаль Макура: Well, I would love to be able to earn money by taking photographs. I work primarily writing bilingual text in English and Czech, editing video and sometimes taking photographs.

Is it because the people ask you not to do it?

When did you start taking photographs and why?

Sometimes that. And sometimes... I mean we have Facebook, so that’s enough privacy lost there. You don't need another leak. Sure, people can go and publish their photos if they want to, but why should they be on my spring?

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I’ve started taking photographs I think when I was 14 or 15 years old. Back then it was not a digital camera, it was the traditional film SLR.

You don’t take pictures of strangers, do you?

Have you ever thought about arranging your own exhibition?

Not really, I’m the shy sort of guy. I usually only shoot people who I know at least a bit. When you shoot, do you just shoot what you see around or you have a certain idea in your mind about an object you’d like to shoot? What do you like shooting in particular? At the moment, play of light. And simple things usually, unless I see something that really catches my eye. So yes, you could say that I naturally have the idea of what I’m looking for, but the original one can turn into something unexpected in the end.

Of course it’s incredibly flattering. But I haven’t actively talked with people "please have my photos, put them up on the walls somewhere". I haven’t done it yet. Perhaps, to be honest, I don’t quite feel that I have enough interesting material to show people. In general, is it easy to carry out your own exhibition here? I don’t think it’s terribly complicated, if you know the right people. Also there are quite a few smaller galleries around town as well. Probably not in the National Gallery, but in one of the smaller venues, cafés - not that difficult to do. What goals would you like to achieve in photography?

What are your sources of inspiration? There are a lot of people, there are tons of them. I haven’t seen that much yet so I am easy to impress. And I find a lot of pictures incredibly inspiring... I think that there are a lot of great photographers on Flickr. I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not. There are amazing people there. I can’t give you the names off-hand right now. I’m rubbish with names. But what I also think is that Flickr has been going down in popularity recently, which is arguably a good thing. Because there are fewer people who just post photographs of their breakfast and their holiday pictures. Although I still do that (laughs). Still, it becomes rather difficult to discover new talents and new interesting photos because of that "interestingness" feature, which promotes the same pictures to everybody. And it’s very difficult to find other pictures that are interesting. Do you seek for criticism ? Do you feel that you need it? It’s I think it’s important if your friends can come up with things that are not so great about your photos. And usually they are your friends who tell you such things, because they’re not afraid of hurting your feelings. So yes, I welcome criticism from people who tell me what it is they don’t like about the photo and how it can be improved.

It sounds terrible, I know, I would perhaps like to move into advertising photography. It’s not something that I’ve been thinking about for that long, because I had a few years break, when I was taking practically no photographs and was busy doing other things. Photography is something that I’ve returned to this year when I bought a new DSLR-camera. It's something that I always wanted to do, because the bulk of my work is writing text for posters, slogans and stuff like that. But I'm growing more and more interested in the visual aspects of what I’m doing, so videography and taking photographs is something I would like to focus more in the future if I get the opportunity. And we can’t help asking: “Do you use iPad to take pictures?” No. I only picked this one 2 weeks ago, it’s the new iPad. I haven’t shot anything with it. ¶ Michals' photos on flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/michal

On Flickr, though, the "laws of Flickr" rule. People will be more likely to praise the photos than to be critical about them. It might be a trend in imitating western, sort of, style.

It hasn’t crossed my mind yet, because right now I’m struggling with finishing my degree in English Literature. I don’t know about photography but education in general tends to be quite theoretical and less practically oriented. So, spending another 5 years in an university might not be a viable option for me at my age. Especially since I’m considering PhD in Literature later on.

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Are you planning to get a degree in photography and to enter FAMU, for example?

Franco Hüller Franco Hüller is an Italian artist and photographer. He has been living in Prague for the last three years. Franco is absolutely bald, fit and full of life. It’s impossible to say how old he is – you may think he is 35, 40 or 50 depending on your own age and experience. He swears like a sailor in his non-native English, speaks gently and fast using lots of gestures. Moreover Franco jokes and smiles a lot. When he does it you can notice lots of wrinkles around his eyes. It seems you can’t talk to him about anything seriously. No, it’s better say… It seems you can’t talk to him about anything serious seriously, but you can discuss serious matters with humour, irony and bad English. We met Franco in a crowded café not far from the Czech National Theatre and occupied the only free table. That very table turned out to be the only non-smoking table in the whole café. So Franco ended up leaving his newly bought cigarette pack untouched and our editor was going through nicotine withdrawals. Keeping our chins up, we ordered coffee and strudel and spent the next hour discussing Czech Republic, photography, education and art.

like constant search for new sponsors, new ways of surviving. And Venice…, it is a very small town. First time you ask a butcher to give you money then a baker. You are looking for money here and there and there… You know for the second time they look differently at you, for the third time they don’t look at you at all. (He drinks beer) We lasted for a year. Where did you study Art? I studied to be a painter. I studied in the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna in Italy. I have never thought that I would be a painter. When I was 4 I wanted to be a butcher, because I liked a smell of meat. Do you know these places with a huge amount of meat? It was nice. Then my sister taught me how to draw when I was very young and after a while it became my main characteristic. You know, you are the one who can draw better than others in your class. Having left school I had a choice. There were two things I could do. I was very interested in

Philosophy and Psychology on the one hand and on the other I was great at drawing. I remember talking to my Philosophy teacher: "I don’t know what to do! What am I going to do next?’" And he told me: "If you have a practical skill, you’d better develop it first. You know, Philosophy is always there". So I went to the Academy of Fine Arts. I desperately wanted somebody to teach me how to draw, of course it's all your personal approach to it, but when you examine masterpieces painted by great artists you want details, technical details how to do that. So that is why I applied to the Academy Of Fine Arts, took part in competition and was accepted. And then I hoped to spend my days thinking about and talking about watercolors, oil paintings, solvents. Unfortunately the reality is not like this anymore as the conceptual art took over and most of my teachers were people, who were trying to teach me the concept of beauty, instead of which solvent suits better for acrylic or oil. Having graduated from the Academy 5 years later I kept painting, carrying out exhibitions. I won a competition, which was organized by an association

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FIX: During our phone talk you mentioned that you had been also dealing with a magazine launch sometime ago.

Franco Hüller: Yes, I had when I lived in Venice. I was much younger that time. I did something with my friends quite similar, something new to Venice. My friends studied Philosophy, Literature and such kind of stuff. They wanted to set up a magazine and they lacked a person who would take part of the aesthetic part. So this is how we got together and set up a magazine. A magazine was supposed to be free. It was our main goal. But that means facing a lot of problems

drinks beer).

You were interested in Philosophy and Psychology. Have you ever got back to them? No, I haven’t. I totally forgot about them. I lost interest in any kind of rational approach to life after my studies in the Academy of Fine Arts. So, you are lucky to be one of those happy artists who earn a living by painting, aren’t you?

More works from this series watch on Franco Hüller's website: www.francohuller.com

which is called "Young Italian Artist" which is held by the National Institution. I won a competition, so they gave me a place for 2 years. That time I opened a gallery in Italy and I was more interested in sort of interactive Art. So I started doing installations, performances.I opened the gallery which was called «Clameur». Once a month we organised an exhibition and then we asked people to give us feedback. We installed a system of sensors and lights, so when people were passing by the gallery lights went on and people could see the stuff, they could see all the explanation about what was showed and were asked to rate it. They were asked to choose 3 best exhibitions out of 9 thus during the second year of the gallery I could work on the same 3 themes the people chose

photography I can include the world into my work. It is not just expressing your ideas or presenting your projects but taking them from the outer world, digesting them and returning back. Photography is what I have been into for the last 3 years. For me it is the best way to learn from what is around you. Prague is a new place for me, so I am still learning. I am still taking photos. I came here for the painting exhibition from Italy 3 years ago and I am still here. They say: "Prague works like a spider net, once you get stuck in it, you can't get out". That is what happened to me somehow.

I started the first real serious job a year ago. I am still not sure about it. I work as a creative director for a company which does branding and packaging. I design logos and do other graphic stuff. It’s not bad. It’s better than working in McDonalds. Sometimes you go to bed thinking, fuu, tomorrow it might be a challenging day, but most of the time you don’t want to wake up in the morning, cause it's like ahh. But that allows me to keep working. So it is good. Do you manage to find the balance between the time you spend doing your job and the time you spend on the art?

Do you speak Czech? No, I don’t at all. Is it a problem for you?

and work on 3 more projects about that. Doing that I think I lost some interest in painting because painting is basically about monologues and monologues get you bored after a while. I needed feedback, so I moved a little bit closer to interactive art and then photography. By means of

Oh, no! It’s not that easy… Absolutely not. I usually combined this stuff with other jobs. I worked with mentally handicapped people for 5 years, then I became a teacher at school. Basically I taught children from 6 to 14 an Art History. I would always combine jobs.

Not really. People speak English everywhere I go. Besides that I am lazy. But I can make an order in a restaurant, but that is all I can do. I know how to get to a place, I enter, I can greet a waiter, order something, pay for it and say goodbye without giving away my Italian origin. But if a waiter doesn’t

More works from this series watch on Franco Hüller's website: www.francohuller.com

Everything is totally unbalanced. Unfortunately I spend most of the time doing my job and this is the saddest part. If I could find some manual job it would be nice. Just to dig holes in the ground 8 hours a day, then going home and thinking about creating stuff. But if your job has something to do with creating stuff, then it interferes. I still don't know how, but I'm sure it does, at least it takes most of my time, which is not something I'm very proud of.

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understand what I am saying I am fucked. (He

You mentioned working as a teacher. What was your teaching approach?

What do you think about "Anti-composition photography", the one that breaks the rules?

Well, in Italy at school children are usually taught "educazione artistica" – that is artistic education, which nowadays means nothing at all. Basically during two hours (the second hour is religion) pupils do homework for other subjects. I myself always had terrible art teachers. I was never involved into the art subject. I remember poor creatures entering the class in the morning and trying to explain you the beauty of Van Gogh that you were unable to understand due to your age. They used to say strange words like "plastic" that meant nothing to me.

I have never been fond of any artistic movement that has rules. I think rules follow the movement. Usually when you have the movement following rules it gets dangerous after a while. Personally I'm totally obsessed with certain kind of symmetry and purity of composition.

But luckily after I left that school I had some very good teachers, so when I found myself teaching back, I enjoyed it, I thought it was very stupid to make children paint and do manual staff, when you have an opportunity to teach them to appreciate things that they would never appreciate themselves. So my classes were mainly focused on the Art History and I found out with a big surprise that children from 10 to 14 years old can fall in love with an artist, who I don't like at all, like Pollock, for example or they can be fond of Dadaism, the thing I accepted myself when I was 20 and they are just 14. They are looking at Duchamp saying : "Wow!" So I didn’t care about teaching them how to draw with a pencil. My main aim was to get them closer to certain subjects so that the next time when they visit museum and see a work of Pollock or Duchamp they would smile. That would be a great achievement, I think.

What do you think about photography education? Is it important?

Can you as a painter help yourself as a photographer? I think somehow it helps me, because of the attention I pay for the composition, for example, which is the same you use when you’re painting. Somehow it comes natural and it might be developed with photography even more, because photography is a fast process and painting is a slow one.

But at the same time I like seeing a photograph that contains mistakes. So I like purposes. And it makes me smile when I see that purposes are messed up because of mistakes but the photo looks even greater.

Education sounds a little bit frightening to me. It looks like you know something other people don't know and you have to tell them what they should know. Which is quite frightening from my point of view From the etymological point of view the word "education" comes from "educare" that means to lead somebody somewhere which is sad for me as I come from Catholic and ex-fascist country. So, you are against any education, right? No, I was fucked up enough by people who were trying to put their personal experience into my head. So I wouldn't do the same. Even though my narcissistic part is quite big, I wouldn't feel like teaching my personal point of view, my personal approach to anybody who is about to follow the same route. I would just give them some technical advice, like if you always have the camera with you then you can be more open to what’s going on around you. The more you see, the more you learn. So I think it's good. The more information you get about what you are doing, the higher amount of different points of view you get, the more you find. So, the education probably is the basic stuff. It depends on who does the education. What’s your attitude towards critique? I show my work and personally speaking I'm very dependent on feedback. That is why I post stuff and exhibit things. You don't get as much as you'd like to get. But yeah.., any time it happens,I feel lucky.

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It’s very easy and very cheap, when somebody sees your work and says: "Oh, it's very nice. What is this shit? Why did you do this shit after that?" That usually works as critique. You feel flattered on the one hand: "So he doesn't like

me. He really likes only that picture and thinks that others are shit". This is what helps. This is a good shock, you know! It makes you feel ‘ok’ about critique. Unfortunately, most of the time because of the way people receive an artistic education, they don't feel authorised to tell you what they think about your work. They say: "Personally I’m not into art, you know, but I do like that". This is what you get most of the time. So it's a very shy approach to the critique, which tends to flatter you than to estimate your work itself. And that is terrible, that leads to nothing. So If I could recommend any kind of critique I would recommend "Oh, this is nice, but what is this shit?" Don’t you think that you as an artist shouldn’t depend on somebody’s opinion? I have no idea. Well, I understand what you mean. There is, I would call it, a post-romantic attitude towards the artist’s personality, that says: "Come on, leave him alone with the absolute, leave him alone with the infinite, he will find something, and he will put it out and he will astonish you". Unfortunately life is

should be something here that works the same way. But there is none. If you touch the religious point of view you get no reaction, nobody is religious over here. If you touch the communistic past you get no reaction. It's already gone.. If you touch their mama, they don’t give a shit. If you touch their daughter,

not like that.

they don't give a shit. Maybe beer or hockey teams topics only can give you sort of reaction.

Have you ever had projects that failed? Yes, I have. When I came to Czech Republic for the first time I was very surprised by the people’s indifference. Probably it isn’t only about Czech Republic but about any metropolis. During my first year here I was out most of the time especially at night as I was painting the central station. I saw terrible stuff. I saw things that everybody has seen like dying people on the pavement or beggars being kicked out of the station because they didn’t look in a proper way. I was shocked by this kind of attitude, so I started working on a project which I thought would work. I was thinking: "How fucking can I move Czech people from the national point of view? How can I touch the pride of the nation?" In Italy it’s very easy. You just talk about someone’s mama or a national soccer team and somebody is already losing his temper. I guess it is like that in lots of countries. In Germany it might be enough to raise your hand to get some reaction. I thought there

So I thought: "Ok, since I don’t get any reaction, I’ll do something!" I made a huge puppet like 2 m big, which was called the pink chameleon. It was a pink, furry chameleon there was a person inside. A huge pink chameleon showed up in public places, where things would happen, things that everybody saw but were pretending not seeing. If there was a person lying dead in front of everybody and nobody bothered to stop a big chameleon used to appear nearby, looking around and taking pictures. I thought that this project could attract at least some attention but it didn’t. It failed. I see. And how do you handle misfortunes? I get upset and then get over them. What can you say about Czech photography? If you talk from the touristic point of view everybody in Czech Republic is in love with Saudek. And that tells you a lot about the time we live in. I wouldn't go too much into it, but... It is pretty clear that I'm not totally in love with Saudek. Saudek is extremely easy, and it is a game you learn after the second photograph. FIX #2/2012

If I'm doing something and it deals with my inner approach to life than the external interference can be a damage to my work. But not If you can include external approach into the work and take the advantage of it- that's the best victory you can ever get. If it's a struggle between you and the rest of the world then you are missing an opportunity.That is why I love including life, reality, people into my work. Because if I'm alone in a room with a white canvas – it’s just me alone in the room with a white canvas. I’m not having fun.

There are some photographers that I know, most of them are young and unknown, that's probably why I find them interesting. But that's it. How do you include Prague into your work besides the pink chameleon? I take photographs. It's because of some voyeur attitude I have towards Czech Republic. It is a very interesting place with interesting people. This café where we are now is a place from where I take most of my pictures. I usually sit at one of those tables faced on the street. During the day at about 2 or 3 in the afternoon there’s a perfect light coming from there. And that offers you an amazing view both onto the street and the people here. You have the mirrors here and on the other side you have people and the tram stop is right there. So I took a huge amount of pictures of people in the tram just sitting at the table and having a beer. This is my attitude, this is how I try to pull Prague into my work.

More works from this series watch on Franco Hüller's website: www.francohuller.com

that, and they show it off. There is another beautiful place, which is called "Cafe Louvre". It is right in the centre, 10 minutes away from here and it has the same atmosphere. It looks like being in 20s, or 30s - the waiters are dressed well, the cakes are huge, people are smiling, the furniture is nice. There is one more "Cubista" which is the only example of cubist architecture in CR. From the certain point of view it's sort of fake amusement park but it's a beautiful one. I remember my first year here. I used to live in Karlín which is a part of Prague down there (Franco is pointing at the window – FIX). I stayed there for about 2 months. I lived on the the third or fourth floor. I came home one evening and I looked out of the window and saw a window of the opposite

building. Everything was clean, everything has been just rebuilt and repainted, and a house was new. It was meant for the higher class and it had this window right in front of me. And outside the window, tied up from the leg there was a pheasant. They used to put those birds once they’re killed just outside the window, first of all to get it refrigerated and second – you fucking show how much money you got. You know, than more pheasants you have, then more people understand. I find it quite surreal to see it in front of my window. This kind of surreal spirit I keep finding all around. They still have this strange mix of Czech old traditions and this new Prague which is coming up. And the things still don't go together. That is why I find it interesting. Are there any communism features left?

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I know that it might be really easy approach to Prague, just seeing how it looks like and you taking pictures, but it's fulfilling, it's reassuring, it's nice and it doesn't stop.

In Prague you can come across strange things and bizarre points of view. They have a crush on what they call The First Republic. Nobody touches The First Republic. Nobody ever. This is a period of greatness of Czech Republic. This was the time when Czech Republic lent money to Austria. That was Czech Republic. That was the cinema industry that time. It was brilliant. The cultural point of CR was brilliant! Theatre, culture was amazing! And they were rich. If you talk to them about the golden period they will recall The First Republic. There is a huge amount of places opening here, which are called "Bistro Bohemia" or that kind of stuff. When they look for a period of beauty they go to the 20s, you will find the 20s all around. Because they love

I hope, I think so. Come on, time flies, people die. It will. Right there just in front of us there was a statue of Stalin, and now there is a Metronome. They teach you what the metronome is symbol of, what it tells you and bla-bla. But Metronome is there because Stalin is not there anymore. You know, for this reason. For the last, can give some advice to fledgeling photographers? Keep the camera with you. Actually, I have no idea… Come on, the world is huge, people are so different. Reasons why people do the art totally differ from one way to another. I have no idea what to advise. When you approach something, like photography or painting, you see how it’s astonishingly beautiful and after years you still don’t know a thing about it.

There is a big difference between this country and other post-communist countries. If you think about Germany, for an example, it seems that after Berlin Wall had been destroyed they started using this old Germany somehow. They started playing games with it. They hold discos in the old communistic buildings, they play with that thing. I think that they brought the part of their old history into the new one, may be playing games with it. But they still have it there. Here everything happened before 1989 totally disappeared. You have to move from Prague to find something. If you catch the bus and go that way (Franko is pointing towards the suggested direction – FIX) then in about half an hour you will see

and look rather beastly, so then you understand what was here before 1989. But apart from that walking around Prague seems like walking around Vienna. They are still totally afraid and totally ashamed by that. And they don't bring it out, not even as a joke. That's amazing. I realised it by doing this packaging job. You have some ideas, you know, about packaging and most of the time they are rejected because it reminds them of the kind of packaging they used to do in the 80s. From my personal point of view I say: "Fuck, it's vintage, it's better". I’m italian and I love that kind of shit. If that’s something that reminds you of the 60s it’s trendy. Here it's forbidden. Here it's still totally under the carpet.

It's terrible when it’s the other way around. It’s terrible when you think you’ve managed the discipline. It happened to me with paintings. You’ve been painting for 15 years, 20 years and you still expect the work to jump out of the canvas and speak to you in an unexpected way. That's what happens for the first time you paint. Give a child watercolors and the effect is so amazing that the child says: "Wow, did I do that? I’m not touching anymore, it’s finished!" And after 20 years you still expect that to happen. But it doesn't fucking happen anymore. It’s the same stain as yesterday. It may have changed, but... So it’s a gift to keep being astonished by what you do. ¶ Franco Hüller's website: www.francohuller.com, on flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/francohuller

"Panelaky", big panel houses. They are of 50 floors

More works from this series watch on Franco Hüller's website: www.francohuller.com

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Do you think it will ever come out?

The Ballet Conservatory?

Ivana Jasminska

I've been into dancing since childhood. And does the Education Science deal with ballet somehow? It is an Education Science that is focused on retarded children.

For those who are hip, FAMU is one of the most prestigious photography schools in Europe. It’s hard to enter it, it’s hard to "survive" in it. It is one of a few Czech higher education institutions that contain fully functional department with classes run in English and high tuition fees. We thought that when you say "photography, school, Czech Republic" you mean FAMU. It turned out not to be not exactly like this. Franco Hüller (see his interview in this edition FIX) told us about another photography school – the Institute of Creative Photography in Opava. This place isn't less odious than FAMU, but this school in Opava is more oriented towards the documentary photography, than to the modern art. The Institute in Opava is extramural. The students regularly get there for tutorials. The average age of students is 25-30. Most of them have full-time jobs, many of them are established photographers, winners of national and international awards. Ivana Jasminska is a student of the Institute in Opava and a documantary photographer. We were talking to her in the editor's office (in the small room on the basement level with lots of tables, computers and staff) of a newspaper "Hospodářské noviny", where she works as a press photographer. It happened so that Ivana doesn't speak English, but can understand Russian, although she can't express herself in Russian, she can only listen. That is why Ivana invited her friend-interpreter to help us. She shortened Ivana's replies so skillfully that we got a feeling that 80% of all Czech words don't really matter. Although we got a bit ''lost in translation'' we got great impression of Ivana and her amazing photos.

Where do you study? I am the second year student of photography school in Opava. This school is mainly focused on documentary photography. Here (in Prague) there are several schools. The most famous is FAMU. It is more about advertising, art and in Opava it is more like a document. Does a photographer need education in your opinion? Is it better go to study or go to shoot a lot? At school where I study we aren't taught how to take a photo. But we are always advised what is better and what is worse. Besides that you have to work a lot on the assignments. It's an international school. There are a lot international students here from Japan, Poland, etc... And not so many from Czech Republic. There are a lot of people who struggle for getting to this school and the competition rate is high. It surely gives you a lot of advantages after graduation. It provides you with more job opportunities. During your studies you get an incredible number of contacts as the school cooperates with galleries, including international ones. So it gives you a chance to get into different galleries in the future. Is there anything in your photography that changes in the course of your studies? The way I arrange shooting process has changed greatly within the last two years. Before I was waiting for the right moment to take a picture, but now I find a proper place, where I want to shoot certain people first. Then I position

FIX: Were you born in Czech Republic? Ivana Jasminska: No, I am Slovak. How did you get into photojournalism? I started attending photography courses three years ago and the professor said that I had a talent for it, that I need to do it professionally. My brother is a photographer and we lived together for 4 years. But I used to be just a model. What had you been doing before you got into photography?

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First, I finished the Ballet Conservatory, then I graduated from the Institute of Special Education Science.

Institute of Creative Photography at Silesian University in Opava (Institut tvůrčí fotografie Slezské univerzity v Opavě, ICP) ICP is one of the most renowned and respected educational institutions not only in Czech Republic but also abroad. Primarily "Opava School" specializes on documentary photography that has become trademark of ICP that attracts both Czech and foreign students. Also in ICP are taught: creative photography, reportage and advertising photography. Institute is headed by well-known photographer, professor Vladimír Birgus (http://www.birgus.com/).

them myself. So on the one hand it is a document and on the other a conceptual photography. So does it mean that you choose a location and then direct events yourself depending on what you want to say? Yes, it does. Anyway I end up getting a document since the place and the people are real. They look like that and they live like that in this space. How do you choose themes for your projects? I start doing something first of all because I take to one certain person. Then I get to know what he or she does and how he or she lives. And only after that I start shooting his story.

The combination of full-time and distance learning is an important feature of ICP. Students spend most of their time working on individual projects. They can send the work to consult teachers and pass the exams over the Internet. The Institute has a permanent staff of teachers (Jindřich Štreit, Aleš Kuneš and others), but also regularly invited wellknown photographers and theorists. "Opava School" is proud to teach not only to photograph, but also to speak and write about photography. At the end of the student’s bachelor's or master's degree courses ICP students have to pass the theory and history of photography exam, produce a description of their project or a short theoretical essay and defend an extensive thesis devoted to the works of certain famous photographer or to the distinct field of photography. Website of ICP in Opava (in czech): www.itf.cz

For example, I lived next to two old ladies, they are blind twins. I used to live in front of them and one day a few years later I came to their place to help. Then I realized that it could be interesting to tell their story. This is how a series of photos with them came out. For me a person whose story I am telling is the most important thing. For example, I found out just not so long ago that there's a youth political movement "Young Communists" in Czech Republic. The members are from 18 to 35 years old. I want to work with it. First of all, the fact that they exist is surprising indeed. The second, I've got interested in the topic itself. There are 18-year-old boys and girls there, who have never faced communism and can't imagine what it is.

things. So I also have a say in this matter, as their opinions are bound to be subjective. I decide how to apply them. Is it common to criticize other students? Do you give your feedback on other student's works? It happens so that there's a lot of jealousy in students' relations. I've got very unpleasant experience when I gave negative feedback on a student's work and I was given attitude for that.

What's your attitude towards critique? Do you need it? So, the relationship between students are rather tense than friendly, aren't they? There are lots of international students who study at school and they form groups, that is why it's hard to unite everybody. Surely, they can have a drink in the bar together. But when they know that only 2 or 3 photos are going to be

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It depends on who criticizes and how criticizes. On the one hand it's great when there's someone who can say that it is bad, why it is so and how to improve it. Then I can work on it. I don't like when somebody says only bad or good things about my works. At school I work with four professors and they all like different

picked they can't help feeling jealous to each other. It's difficult to stay friends under such conditions. Was it hard to enter the school? It was. Only 30 out of 400 people entered. What are the requirements? First you have to present a series of 15 photos, an illustration for a book and a self-portrait. Then the second round comes and you have to present 15 new photographs and pass the entrance tests. And the third part is an interview. An interview should be the hardest part, right? During the interview the board wants to make sure that you are confident enough and you really want to enter this University. That is why the main component of the interview is critique. Your task is to convince everybody, to explain why you want to deal with this very kind of photography, why you want to deal with the photography and nothing else. What would you like to achieve in photography? I want to be a documentary photographer. Now I work for the economic newspaper. In the future I'd like to work freelance and shoot what I want and how I want. I'd love to create the document as I see it, travel around the world.

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Not so long ago I finished a series that I had been working on for 3 years. It is devoted to the life of Ruthenians – a small nation that lives in the north of Slovakia. There are only 30 thousand of them left and they are considered to be endangered. For three years I used to take photos of them. Every year I went there and took pictures of the way they lived and the way their life changed.

Did you live with them? I am Rutheninan myself.

So you work and study at the same time, don't you? How does the education process go so that it lets you work? It is distance learning. Once every two months we have a workshop that lasts for 4 days. The school offers only distance courses due to the fact that a lot of students and most of professors are established photographers. They take part in lots of exhibitions and travel around the world. So it would be impossible for them to attend classes every day. Are there any authors who inspire you? Martin Parr, ''Magnum photographers'', Jindřich Štreit (the University professor), La Chapelle, Diana Arbus. I like photographers who take conceptual photographs.

Do you believe that there's something special about Czech

lost the interest. I am going to come back to them some time later. And I am

photography?

going to shoot them but in a different way, within absolutely different concept.

Not now as you can feel the enormous western influence. But in the 80s they started to create a social document. And a lot of people still do it, they make the series whereas they started with classical film photography long ago. There are a few photography monthly magazines in Czech Republic. They are mainly oriented towards a conceptual photography. The reason why the

But several years later, not now. It's hard to say when to stop. May be it's time when you start losing the interest. Or when there's nothing new to show and there's no sense of going on. Do you have any theme restrictions, something that you will never shoot? May be violence or pain...?

majority of Czech photographers is focused on the conceptual photography is

I don't want to shoot in the studio. Violence and pain don't bother me, but I

that if you want to carry out exhibitions abroad you have to shoot a concept.

don't want to take photos in the studio. Because it's more engaging to be in the

That is why the conceptual photography is mainly taught at schools.

street, talk to people, get to know them. And studio is a cage for me. I am like

If you are creating a concept you have to make up an idea yourself, to prepare light and so on. If you are doing documentary or report you just need to wait for the right moment. There is less from the author in such kind of photography.

a rabbit in the cage. It is good for studies. You can learn how to set the light and other technical aspects. But as soon as you get it, bring this knowledge into the street and shoot there. ¶

Hence the conceptual photography is harder. But personally I do documentary photography. Are you thinking about your potential spectator? When I shoot, first of all I am interested in a person. I'd love to get to know him, look how he lives. And only after that, when the work is done, I'd like to share my work with others, to sell it, to show it. It's not right to think about others in the beginning. Tastes differ. You can't just say: "Why don't I shoot Ruthenians?" It doesn't work like this. The interest is always the first. And later when you have already spent with these people a plenty of time you can take "a different" picture. Look at them from the different side, show something new about them. How do you understand that your work on a series is complete? When I started working on the series about the Ruthenians, I made up the whole concept at once. I immediately got the idea about what I want to get in the end. And then every 6 months I visited them and took the same photos

of the same people. And then 3 years later I realised that I got tired, that I

Neustadt"

Film and Television School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU) (Filmová a televizní fakulta Akademie múzických uměnív Praze, FAMU) Department of Film and Television (FAMU) is part of the Academy of Performing Arts (AMU). FAMU is one of the most famous and oldest film school in the world (founded in 1946). Department of Photography at FAMU was founded in 1975 and is therefore one of the oldest departments of photography in Europe. FAMU can hardly to be called the school of “classic” photography, it rather focused on advertising and conceptual photography. Education at the Department of Photography FAMU offered the Bachelor Program (for 3 years, 6 semesters) and the Master Program (for another 2 years, 4 semesters). Starting in the third semester, students have the opportunity to study within one of five Studios. These individual Studios are headed by regular FAMU teachers. For example, documentary photography studio is headed by photographer Viktor Kolář.

Various other Workshops are part of the Studio System, their focus and content changes every year depending on the specialization and creative work of the teachers leading these Workshops. Most of these are external lecturers – renowned personalities from the field of photography. This learning process allows students to see a wide variety of professional, creative and human approaches and thus to formulate their own opinion and creative approach. FAMU is widely known for its rigorous entrance requirements. Applicant must know how to shoot on film and develop the film. Among the photos in the portfolio have to be at least one black and white photograph, taken on film, self-developed and self-printed. International students can study at the Faculty of Film and Television at the same rights as Czech students. For that foreign students have to pass the entry exams in Czech and to get required Czech Language Certificate to B2 level of CEFRL (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages). Department of Photography at FAMU website (In English.): foto.amu.cz/en/ FAMU website (in English.): www.famu.cz/eng/

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The educational program develops both the creative talents as well as base technical and theoretical knowledge in the areas of photography, which include traditional photography technique, shooting in the studio and processes as well as digital methods.

Frano Prochazka Frano Prochazka studies at Czech photography school FAMU, that is famous all around Europe. We are in the small park at the Vltava embankment among ducks, bicycles and kids with their parents. Frano starts the interview first. He asks: "Which photos have you seen? Did you like the last series?" Frano speaks slowly, pauses to think from time to time, finds an argument, that contradicts his view point and muses on it even more. It seems that names, books, photos he is talking about hold an incredible value for him, that they have become his essential part. In the middle of our conversation he gets distracted by the phone call and is glad to claim: "My girlfriend, Ira, is coming now. We study together. She is from the Ukraine and you can speak Russian". Ira is coming up in a half an hour, rolls a cigarette and here you are, we get two interviews instead of one. (See Ira's interview in this issue).

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Then we go to the cafe. Frano talks about recent philosophy lecture in FAMU. He says that the teacher showed them Nick Ut's famous photo that depicts Vietnamese girl running away from the village burnt with napalm. This photo has changed the world society opinion on the Vietnam war. "The photo created the world of the Big Village. Every man on the Earth could feel the pain of this girl", – the teacher said. Frano says that he argued with a teacher giving Jesus as an example. "Everyone could feel his pain, having looked at the crucifixion", – he reckons. We start a long (3 tea cups long) argument about Jesus and the Big Village. Frano is keen on arguing. When he finds himself in "the dead end", he pauses, finds new arguments and he makes a new attack doubled in power. By the time the third cup is almost finished I manage to prove by means of intricate conclusions that the world of the Big Village exists provided that the God exists. "As he doesn't

exist, then the argument doesn't exist either", – I say. Frano ponders over it and goes to the bathroom. He comes back , looks at me and smiles. "That was ingenious about God, I liked it". I am on cloud nine, it seems like I was praised by the argument maestro. Frano Prochazka: Which photos have you seen? FIX: We saw the series called "Forest". It was for entry exam in FAMU, I guess, and a few photos on your website. Now I make a little bit different things that I was doing previously. Yes, your style has changed basically. I wonder what background is behind this? Do you like the second series? Actually yes, but it's just totally different. In the "Forest" series you are looking for certain aesthetics, classical aesthetics of black and white shots. There is no such aesthetics and composition left in the second series, but it gives some kind of expression and emotion which we like. I made the series "Forest" while I was working in the computer science. And for me the photography was my passion, you know. Every time I left office, I would go around with my camera and I looked for something, that I considered beautiful. Then I quit and entered FAMU. And suddenly the photography became my main occupation. It stopped being "an escape" from something. Moreover now I needed to escape from photography somehow. I got to know so many photographers and visited so many exhibitions that I got bored with what I had been doing before. I felt that I needed to move further, to look for some new aesthetics, like, for example, a photographic error, where defocus or wrong light are tools of expression. From this point of view the last series looked like overcoming my own limits and for me it was beautiful, even more

ÂŠ Frano Prochazka, the series of works for the local exhibition in FAMU, 2011

that those trees. Now my analogue camera is broken and I'm taking photos with my mobile phone and it's also kind of aesthetics. I think now I am a little bit lost, I don't know what I want to say, that is why I am experimenting now. Was it hard to enter FAMU? It wasn't. You are either accepted or not. They decide. I had to tell them about my works during the exam. They asked what and why. I had to defend my point of view. I remember somebody from the board asked me: "What will you do if you can't do photography?" and "What are you interested in apart from photography?" And what was your answer? Literature. I mentioned some books, that inspire me and explained in what way they were connected with photography. Ira is laughing (Ira is standing nearby and laughing indeed), because she knows that I've read about 10 books in my

whole life. But that books were very important! (Frano is smiling and looking at Ira meaningfully)

What books did you mention? Actually, I mentioned 3 books on this exam. I mentioned Kundera "The Unbearable lightness of being", where the depth of characters amazed me. Hemingway inspired me with the idea of life as an adventure. And then I said Bulgagov "Master and Margarita", where I was impressed by presence of magic in the daily life. Kundera is very interesting, because he knows his characters better then they do themselves. It is exactly what I said: "It's important to be sincere towards yourself and towards how profoundly you analyze your reasons and motivations". Later I read "100 years of solitude" by Marquez. Magical realism is what I really like. Kundera is really depressive. Everybody knows that life sucks. Who likes reading about this? (laughing). Magical realism doesn't deny it, but it gives a chance. If there were such a genre in photography I would be a magical-realist-photographer. What impressions of FAMU do you have?

FAMU isn't a classical photography school. And I had a big problem with conceptual photography, especially at the beginning. It was something I didn't understand and appreciate. I wanted to keep being myself. And now another interesting question arises, who you are and what it means to keep being yourself. I thought that what I had been doing previously was being myself. But

suddenly at school I faced completely different opinions and ideas and my work was influenced by that. And now I am trying to confront this influence. I'm trying to work not only with photography, but with animation also. We use it for exhibitions. They can ask you: "Why did you decide to exhibit your photos this way?" In the beginning I thought it didn't matter, but it does matter. It makes the difference and I didn't feel this difference. I presented the last exhibition in form of a tree, taking a branch and putting a photo at the end of it, that was moving by the

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When I was entering I thought that the aesthetics was the most important thing. I thought that doing photography is like about any other work â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the more you work on something the better result you get, the closer you get to the point to express the beauty that you see. But there is a bit different approach at school. In FAMU you must be able to defend your work. "Why" is the most important question here that you have to learn how to answer.

wind. It's not the same if you just put it on the wall. It's half photography and half structure and it is interesting. If we are talking about understanding beauty, knowledge or whatever, all these meet in one point. Wherever we try to get by means of photography, science or whatever, there is only one point we are seeking for. And I thought that I could get there with the help of photography. Now I've realized that it is more about the matter of faith. And you can choose whichever photography style and you think that your choice is right. So does it mean that your beliefs have changed after the entry ? No, no. I don't think that the school changed my beliefs. I have the same ones, but I try to experiment with them, analyze them, may be even make fun of myself. Here is an example. I am looking for something. Imagine that I've found it. And what does it really look like? Now I've got to the point, where I think about photography not only from the aesthetics view, but from the point of medium. So I reach the conceptual photography that I was so scared of and couldn't understand. I thought, it's not for me, I have to be aware, I want ot be myself. And suddenly I find myself being somebody else. From this point the school influenced me a lot. If I had seen present me 2 years ago, I'd have said: "Oh, no! I don't want this!" But now I am really happy. I moved forward as I got some experience. Although, it's difficult to say what is forward and what is backward. What way do teachers affect the education process? And do you get the most influence from the teachers or the students? Both. You are influenced by everything. Actually, it's hard to find out what the teachers' role is in all that. As there are teachers who support you and make you feel comfortable. And there are some who say: "Why? For what?" And there's a constant conflict that you have to face. And what is better for you – teachers' support or the conflict? Personally, the conflict is more interesting, because I have a reason to fight. When I worked in the office doing photography was a fight against that lifestyle, a search for another beauty. Now I need something else to fight against, may be the school system or whatever. I think the fight is a natural thing when you work. Well, on the other hand it's all relative, what it beautiful, whose opinion is right, what is good and what is bad, what makes sense and what doesn't... This is an endless argument that will never stop. Is it common thing for teachers to say that this photo is good and this one is bad. Do they have any criteria used for assessing photos? This is an interesting issue. I respect their opinion, but after all they just defend their opinions. Let's take a teacher-documentalist, who spent his life shooting accounts of events. For him photography means something completely different than for those who teach new media, paint, experiment and don't take photos. There are teachers who do technical photography and they do it in precise way, everything should be technically perfect. And the question is how to define whose opinion is right, what the photography and the art should look like. There is an opinion fight at school and when you get there you become a part of it. And you have to choose your side and it's hard not to get lost. The school can be considered as a creative environment. Confrontation and disappointment are part of this environment. I almost haven't been taking photos since I entered the school. I still love photography, but I am doing different things. And when I have my camera fixed that will be a great pleasure to go somewhere and shoot and forget about everything. But there's another side. You have to understand what you shoot, what comes out of it and what those images mean, what you want to say and how you will defend your view point. Does it matter? © Frano Prochazka, works from the series "Ortigueira 2010"

Yeah, because one thing is when you shoot for pleasure and you don’t even need to develop the film, you can just keep it. But when you develop the film

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and look at that image, do you really understand what you have shot, all that

emotions? Can you say something? Can you say something that haven't been said by lots of other people? Is it worth saying it in the world where anyone can be a photographer, where everyone has a camera. It’s kind of difficult.

I have a material question. You used to work as a programmer, you had a job and probably a stable income. Then you quit and entered this school. What do you expect from the future? What are you going to do after finishing school? I have no idea, what I want. When I was a child I wrote a computer game and I thought it would be great to work with that. And since that moment I haven't found anything more interesting. But to be honest I wasn't good at computer science. I have a problem with concentration and if you want to programme you have to focus, to be able to keep a lot information in your mind and use it efficiently. It was hard for me to concentrate, I was distracted all the time. May be I could do better some time later if I hadn't come across one FAMU lecture about art and photography. And I've realized that I'm stuck here while there are lots of interesting things around. I applied to FAMU and when I got to know that I had been accepted I quit.

reason. It's such kind of approach, to use what I have and if I had better chemicals to develop, better optic in my camera or I had Canon 5D instead of mobile phone, my photography would look different. But whatever I use there's something in common that all my shots have, hence it doesn't really matter what you use. For me the biggest difference between analogue and digital photography is that you are loosing that secret. When you shoot something, you don’t see the result, it’s in your head. Then you compare the result with the original idea. This waiting time is essential, to my mind, and it doesn't exist within digital one. Sure, you can hide it, but I’m not such a patient person to wait. And in general it's useless to copy analogue photography with the help of digital one, as digital photography has its own advantages and its own language, and it makes no sense to replace it with another language. What photographers had influenced your style before you entered FAMU?

I didn't know what I wanted to get from photography and I still don't know it, because I can't earn a living with the kind of photography I am doing. Now I sometimes earn money taking photos or cooking or doing some other students'

When I started doing photography I found Magnum agency and I checked out works of people who worked for this agency. I liked this classical document. Then one of my favourite photographers became Antoine de’Agata. He is a

jobs. At first I thought it could be great to teach photography as you could combine easily this job with your personal projects. After 2 years spent here I am not sure that I want to teach. There are lots of conflicts here as everywhere, I guess. And everything depends on how strong you are to defend yourself if somebody touches you.

French photographer, his document was a little bit different, because he was shooting prostitutes on the streets or his sexual relations. His aesthetics was very different, dark and blurred and of low quality. The quality has been always important to me, but D'Agata's shots brought some power in them. He made me look at photography differently, he inspired me a lot. And I still admire Wolfgang Tillmans as well.

There's an English-speaking department in FAMU. Do you keep in touch with its students? Yeah. But these departments are kind of separated. English-speaking students don’t get in touch so much with Czech-speaking students. We have most of classes separately, and there are few workshops, that are run in Czech, but translated into English, where we can be together. But this year, the people are a little bit different, and we sometimes go out together. But in the end, it’s always up to you. Here, in Czech Republic people are more reserved, that is why it could be difficult for a foreigner to understand them. By the way, you don’t shoot digital, except that mobile phone photography? I spent last 3 years shooting analogue. But I used digital camera as well, especially for commercial orders. Now I am shooting with my mobile phone.

Imagine, you are a teacher. How would you communicate with a student? What would you tell him? I like the idea that everyone can be an artist. I might be mistaken and it is Utopia. But only imagine how great would it be if everybody were equal and there were no hierarchy. Maybe if I was a teacher I would struggle to defend this idea. I am doing it now, trying to understand if everything can be considered an art. What are the rules? Should we respect them or break them? And how far can one go doing it? These are curious questions. ¶ Frano Prochazka, Czech Republic website: franoprochazka.com page on FAMU's website: foto.amu.cz/en/fraňo-procházka-78 blog: t1219.blogspot.cz

I think I can find the reason why I use mobile phone. But the true is – I have a mobile phone with the camera, so why not to use it. So, it’s an economical

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What is special about mobile phone shooting? Do you try to feel yourself a part of the popular culture or mass culture?

ÂŠ Irina Zaharova, photos from the series about Ukraine

Irina Zaharova Not so long ago I got a chance to watch a record of the Russian TV show "Antropology" with Dmitriy Dibrov dated the 16th of June 1999. I don't know if anybody remembers who Dmitriy Dibrov is and what "Antropology" was. Let's go back 13 years ago. In 1999 Dmitriy Dibrov was some new blood on the national TV. He was a presenter with extraordinary approach, a man in his prime, a melomane. He was one of the first who brought the night air shows into fashion on our TV as well as one of the first who started inviting there musicians to play live. So, on the 16th of June in 1999 Dibrov invited Zemfira, a young star from Ufa, to take part in his TV show. (Now Zemfira is a superfamous Russian rock singer, misician and composer). During the show Zemfira was fooling around and laughing, breaking the spectators' stereotypes one by one. Dibrov was impressed: "You are so real!" So, what's the point? The point is, if you want to know what Irina Zaharova, a Ukranian photographer and a student of FAMU, is like, watch that programme with Zemfira. To my mind they have a lot of things in common.

faculty. There's no photography school in the Ukraine at all. Vladimir Kukorenchuk really wanted to start a photography department. But it's pretty difficult at our place. That is why he set up a photography club within the cameraman faculty. So according to my diploma I am a cameraman, but I studied photography, the analogue one, chemistry, so the traditional basics. We didn't deal with video at all. Then it took me 10 months to learn Czech and I entered FAMU. Did you get here on purpose to enter FAMU? I wanted to study and I wanted to study at a good photography school. Surely, you can't know anything until you try it. But I had an impression that FAMU was a good school. Are you disappointed with it? It's a good school. But "a good school" also means some responsibilities. A burden of being a student. I study too long, of course, and a position of a pupil in the class, this feeling itself gives me some pressure. You just want to make a pause, stand still and think. Anyway, now I am doing my second year of the Czech program.

FIX: What do you do? How did you get to Prague?

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Irina Zaharova: I'm from Kharkov. At first I studied law in Kharkov, then I moved to Kiev to become a student of Kukorenchuk, a cameraman from the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography. I did photography at the cameraman

ÂŠ Irina Zaharova, photos from the series about Ukraine. With this series Irina applied to the FAMU

Was it difficult to learn a language? It wasn't, how to say, for everyday life. But if we take philosophy class it gets harder. I've already been here for 3 years and even if I understand everything from the linguistic point of view, it doesn't mean that I get the actual meaning. For me the background isn't an easy thing. Can you feel the difference between Czech and Russian/Ukranian mentality? I felt the difference only because of the fact that I was 25 when I started my first year of University. It mattered because guys were much younger. You become younger automatically and come over things that you already came over long ago, solved them out. Even in terms of photography. I'm not talking about teenagers' problems, not at all. You just start thinking about things that were already clear for you – about photography matters and the art in general. And it is kind of hard. And besides that Russian-speaking people are a hot button for me. Here to be from Denmark or to be from the Ukraine are two different things. I am not sure if it is a problem for them from the historical point of view or their insecurity. I speak their language well, even very well. It is enough to study or to translate. But anyway there's something. Don't think that it's something serious. You can't say that they dislike Russians openly – it is more like a stereotype, a negative emotion. You see a guy on the street, he seems so free, so open-minded then he comes home and hears from his grandmother who is a doctor: "I'm not going to examine that girl anymore". They keep such things deeply inside. You can study in English in FAMU, can't you? If you have an opportunity to study in Czech in FAMU, study in Czech. The reason is that English-speaking students are in absolutely different world. This is how I see it. The main point is that they don't get the same. Even if all lectures are translated and teachers are great, it is not the same thing. They are totally isolated, they don't visit the same exhibitions or they go there later or at different time. They are kind of “out of the context.” Some people say that the war started at the beerhouse, so roughly speaking we can say that the project can start at the party. And they can't have it. One of my good projects started like this from the party, tea-drinking, an informal meeting. What project did you present at your entry exam? The documentary photography. A series about the Ukraine. Do you get interviewed? Yes, you do and it's the most important exam. When I was passing it I had been here for 4 months. I knew about 10-20 words. And how was it? Terrible. The reaction is important. The questions range from "what film do you use?" and "why do you have different eyes?". I was asked that. There is a psychologist on this exams and they ask these questions to see your reaction. Do they ask theory questions? Yes, just everything that flashes into their mind. They are 15-20 people and you are just one. You are really stressed there... And as I got it you should react in such a way that if somebody from the far table decides to ask you a question you should hear it and react, not to forget about it, not to forget to react. I was asked if I knew this or that photographer or this or that photo. They want you to be as honest and simple as possible?

FIX #2/2012

Sure, to be yourself. Because then it isn't worth it, it is just silly. I mean if you "win" being dishonest then you'll just die there, it will destroy you from inside.

Are there many people who burn out or leave school? Yes, there are. It happens because they have some views and then realize that nobody needs them at all. They are totally and openly in no demand. It is particularly hard for a person with Eastern mentality, who got used to be surrounded by "friends and brothers". It doesn't work here at all. Here every man for himself in rather harsh way. One teacher told me that it was hard to survive in any kind of such schools if you didn't have clearly formed opinion on photography or art. So you don't come here to seek for something, you bring something here. It can be a view only for one day, but it can support you and you can defend it. And think about this. During the interview you are asked to comment one photo. Can you say openly "I don't like this photo, I can't see anything special about it”? Yes, I can. It is exactly what I did. I thoroughly regretted saying that afterwards, because during the education process I took to this photo. But that time I said it and it was honest. But now "this honest" has changed, but it is still honest. So, does it mean that if you haven't found yourself yet and you want to learn something but you don't know what exactly it isn't time for you yet? But who defines it? Teachers you think? No, it is you who define it and nobody else. Well, you want it, you think that you need it so then you really need it. That's it, I decide. Because if you just sit and wait… We all know how it goes. What would you have done, if you hadn't entered FAMU? Did you consider this option? No.

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It makes sense.

You know, I just didn't have a choice, it was absolutely necessary. I just didn't have money and choice, I wanted it. Radically. I was radical. During the exam I surely benefited from the fact that some professors speak Russian. So if I said something in Russian once or twice, they managed to understand me. It is kind of easier. On the other hand, I put all my effort to speak Czech even using fingers. It was radical indeed and they saw it. Question-reply, question-reply. I keep analyzing what I wanted to get from the school. It turns out to be some passive desire to learn something, to try something new. And now when you have to survive and struggle in this world, it gets hard “to be afloat” here due to my pacifist outlook. It's certainly better be a shark. It was news to me that previous education isn't important in FAMU. An uneducated person will be more successful here than a book-wise one. Look, here's an example. (Ira points at Frano) What? Really, I'm saying it openly. Three books and here you go. Just don't give a damn, forget about education, you just have to be bold. I am surely exaggerating now, expressing it roughly. But it's essential to understand that sometimes you need to behave badly. It might be one of the most significant things that I learn at this school, within this environment. Has your photography style changed after the entry? Yes, absolutely! I would shoot a document before I entered FAMU, almost like Frano. I learned from cameraman from the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography. You can imagine what kind of vision I had on composition and other things. And then I realized that may be it doesn't matter, that it can be done in another way and you can look at it from some other perspective. But to get it I had to go and study. The first thing that happens to a nice guy in FAMU is that from a nice guy he automatically turns into a troublemaker. After that it's important to find the balance, find some sense, not just deny yourself from the past. Now there's just a denial of what we've brought with us. A groundwork, this is wrong, that is wrong. Tarkovskiy isn't right, I am better, they are better as they are more

progressive. I am carrying too far, of course. (Andrei Tarkovskiy was a Soviet and Russian filmmaker, writer, film editor, film theorist, theatre and opera director – FIX). You need to find your own truth, not just deny and argue.

everybody in 6 months – a small town, just a small art scene. Moreover I get scholarship. If you are a part of the Czech program you get a lot: residency, 50% discount on transport. It all works like at home in the Ukraine. Food and other things don't cost a lot here.

Would you advise to get photography education in particular? How do you feel when you shoot weddings?

Frano said that a conflict, a struggle in the interaction with teachers of FAMU was very important for him. What about you? Does getting the information matter more? Everybody is different. Especially Frano and I. Yes, I love to argue but only when I have something to say. And Frano is a person who argues for the sake of arguing, in a good sense. He will argue instead of reading, it is his way of getting new information. What about me, I like to work and find this information myself, then analyze it and come to the conclusion. Do teachers criticize? Do you listen to their opinion or you have to be self-confident? You must be self-confident. What about comments, they are always negative, even if you bring very good works. Most of the teachers don't shoot at all, they are theorists, who work with media and others. There are may be not more than two photographers, who shoot, left. How do you earn a living while you are studying? There are traditional shootings: weddings, objects. Everything I come across. Besides that the school mails out. Here you are – a job or a competition, if you want. You can find a way out if you don't know anybody. You end up knowing

You've asked and I've thought that I was working in the aqua park all summer long, taking pictures of people in the swimming pools and selling them prints right there. First I thought: "It will reform my mind and then what it is all for?" And then it turned out that one of your parts switches off and that's it, it is work. I started looking for something in such kind of shooting that I can use. Even shooting people in swimming suits, who seem having the same faces, even here you can find some philosophy. There is life even in this shots. Even changing views on this helps you to find ways to new opportunities. I used to isolate something from me, something seemed wrong to me, absolutely wrong. And I think: "Why not? It can be different". What about those who graduate from FAMU? Do they manage to earn by means of their art? In FAMU everything looks as if everybody knew what to do. In fact nobody knows a thing. Everyone just does something. Certainly, they find some ways out afterwards. For example you can win the grant or do the project, then introduce it and send to some contest. You may win something and can be invited somewhere else. Then a new project and it is how it works one by one. But anyway even established photographers and artists have to work and earn money. I met one of such big stars not so long ago and he says: "All this is great, of course, but I have to work". Teaching is one of the examples. It isn't like this that you win the grant and you are a king. It doesn't work like this. ¶ Irina Zaharova, Ukraine, Czech Republic page on the website of FAMU: foto.amu.cz/en/irena-zakharova-79

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Yes, totally. In comparison with my life in the Ukraine studying abroad is a big step forward. But, it certainly depends on a person. May be you have your own access to these types of information, these books, archives, for example. Some of these texts are not translated into Russian at all. All these things will never fall into my hands unless I study here.

I didn’t see all the works, but sometimes I came across some bad pictures. They were kind of creepy, but my friends liked them. Thanks to them I was a boss of our gang (laughing). At the moment those photos seem more dangerous and weird to me than when I was a child. It’s a paradox. Was it difficult to enter FAMU? There are a lot of people who are keen to enter this school. I don’t know for me it was quite easy. What kind of experience did you get in FAMU? What did you learn?

Michal Adamovsky In Prague on the west bank of the river Vltava there’s a museum Kampa right at the water’s edge. There are enormous statues of babies with shining polished butts and heads looking like boxing gloves. And there are crowds of tourists coming up to the babies endlessly. They are rubbing the butts and taking photos. We are watching this scene, wondering. It turns out to be as engrossing as watching flowing water and burning fire. We are about to forget that we are here to see Michal Adamovsky, a student who is in his first year of Master’s at the Prague Photography School FAMU. He is coming up to us first. "Hello, I am Michal! Are you the guys from FIX? Great! I am short of time, I am late for the training. So, let’s do it fast just for about 10 minutes". "Okay, no problem, we are professionals!" – we said and switched on the dictaphone. We talked for about an hour and a half, Michal didn’t get to the training. It seems he didn’t really want to. Michal Adamovsky: It’s my first interview with the Russian people, so I’m a little bit shy (laughing). FIX: How and when did you get into photography?

I think a lot of things. I got a lot of technical skills in particular. During the first and the second year we had a lot of technical lectures focused on the black and white photography, large format, the architecture, the documentary photography, it’s the very beginning. I think this school is one of the best if we take the technical skills. And after the first 2 years we got more time to express ourselves. And also there are a lot of teachers and everyone is different. Someone is awesome, someone is not so good. Actually, it depends on a person. Do the teachers help you to get your own direction? How does it work? Yeah, there are 15-20 teachers working for our faculty. Each semester a teacher from another country, the USA, for instance, visits us or we meet some famous photographer from Czech Republic. And it’s very individual, I have 2 or 3 teachers that I admire. From time to time an interesting person comes to our school and then suddenly you can feel some connection, very strong connection. Just 4 hours can give you something that will follow you all next year. The second very important factor, sometimes even more important than teachers, is being in a group of people. There are a lot of people from all over the world, because we have the Czech and international departments. There are people from China, Taiwan, Denmark, France and etc. Do you have classes together? We have some classes together and some classes separately. I would like to have more mutual classes as I need to improve my English. At the moment it leaves much to be desired. A month ago I came back from the workshop in Marseille, that was run by Antoine D’Agata from Magnum Photos. A lot of foreigners took part (can’t remember any Russians, though) and I realized: "I have to learn English".

It happened when I was 6. My father was a photographer so that was one of the reasons. Then I had a long break, and I started taking pictures again when I was 19 or 20. What did you do during that “gap” period? Did you study or do anything else? I played the guitar, as for me the music was more important. Before entering FAMU (Film and TV School of Academy of Performing) I studied Law at the Law faculty. During my studies I also started taking some pictures, then I managed to get into this famous school (FAMU – FIX) and that was a miracle. So I gave up my law job but I am still interested in copyright law in photography. I think that the fact that my father worked as a photographer for the criminal police influenced me somehow. He used to take photos and capture on video the crime scenes of muggings, murders. He photographed the criminals.

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Did you see your father’s works when you were a child?

Yeah, sometimes I heard the stories or saw the pictures. The paradox is that my mother was a birth attendant, and all her life she delivered babies and my father all his life took pictures of death. And I’m somewhere in the middle between my mother and my father.

What are you going to do after your graduation? Will you work in photography or in another field? (laughing) A good question. I don’t know, I would like to take photos and carry

out exhibitions all over the world. (laughing) But it has nothing to do with the reality, because I have to earn a living and support my family. I think in reality I will combine. I will earn money working in law and do photography for fun, just for myself. What do you think whether photographers should get some photography education or they just have to shoot, shoot and it’s enough? I think sometimes it’s good to take some break and think about yourself and photos. My job also deals with photography. I do some commercial jobs, it’s very mechanical. You take pictures and you don’t think about your "own" work. It’s very different from your own work.

Exhibition Hall Manes, Prague

What would you like to achieve in photography? (laughing) For me I don’t pursue the final goal of getting my works exhibited in

some famous galley, like MoMA or TateModern. But I’d love to have exhibitions here and I would be happy if I sold some of my photos in Prague. Do you travel a lot? Yeah, this year I’ve started travelling quite a lot. The next Friday I’m going to Israel for 10 days, because we would like the school from Jerusalem cooperate with our school, it is sort of exchange. Then 2 days ago I got the grant in NY, so I am going to NY as well. The programme includes two months but I am planning to spend 4 months there. The grant is about copyright in photography. Before I wrote about copyright law in photography focusing on its evolution up to the Second World War. And now I’d like to do the special project taking the time period after the Second World War up to the present, when there’s a facebook and other things. Besides that I hope I’ll have a chance to shoot. So I want to combine my grant work and photography.

Slovak National Gallery, Bratislava

What is your attitude towards criticism of your works? Criticism is a common thing at our school. I think it’s important. I welcome the constructive criticism. What about the FAMU students? Do you criticize someone’s work or vice versa? Yeah, it’s difficult. (laughing) Maybe Frano and Ira (see Frano and Ira’s interviews in this issue – FIX) mentioned the same problem. Imagine there is a group of 10 people, there is a teacher. Teacher says something, criticizes and a lot of young students are influenced by this opinion, it’s not objective. So, a lot of people are quiet, they don’t want to confront with the arguments with a teacher.

DOX Centre for Contemporary Art, Prague

So, they don’t argue with teachers, do they? Some of them argue, but most of them – don’t. (laughing) I like this confrontation. (laughing) It seems important to me. But I don’t like the emotional arguing, when people are shouting at each other. It’s not constructive. What about inspiration? What kind of things or photographers inspire you?

What kind of photography do you prefer: documentary or conceptual photography? I like documentary photography, but I’m not a complete documentalist. I like the photos of people, but I love to participate in these photos, influence them

DOX Centre for Contemporary Art, Prague © Michal Adamovsky, the series «Exhibition», 2011 Common project with Katerina Zahradnickova

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Several photographers from our school, I like them a lot. And I like the Finnish school, TAIK from Helsinki. Generally, the feelings from the photos by the Sweden photographers, photographers from the north are close to me. Sometimes I am inspired by some certain photographs. I don’t know…

somehow, for instance, doing stage shooting, like the series about a man exhibited in the gallery.

took us an hour to get there. We would spend the whole day there, talking about everything.

But I think the most of my portfolio is influenced by my father, these strange things in life and strange situations in society. I’ll give you an example. Once I took the photos of the murder’s head. It’s rather peculiar, as before 60s he was infamous serial killer in Czech Republic. He was arrested, then he committed suicide and the people from the hospital cut his head. And this head has been conserved in the jar since that time. The head only and it’s hard to understand why they needed it.

These photos are so emotional that it feels as if you were inside them.

Like in Futurama...

It took me 25 days. Every day I was on the island alone or with some girl.

Yeah, exactly, but it’s true one from Czech Republic. So, the series about a man in the galleries is about something strange closed in the space. It is linked with my father, as it contains some brutality, some extraordinary part.

Do deadlines help or bother you?

My last series done in Marseille came out differently. I took pictures of women only on one silent island near the Marseille. I focused on the women or some part of my mother. You can say that these photos are extraordinary as well. Here are some strange pictures of a woman, you can see kind of branch in her mouth, some symbol of the nature. This photo was taken in the middle of the day. These little lights are the reflexions of the very bright sun light coming from green leaves. It’s film, 35mm. (Michal is showing us his pictures - FIX) There are certain symbols, that build up a system, create certain rhythm of symbols that you can find in all these photos. It’s interesting to combine shots in a story. Look at this photo of birds and this one of a dead seagull. They can be connected, work together. I like it, because it can produce lots of ways of interpretation. It’s good when you have one picture, but when you have 6, it is wonderful. These works differ greatly from my previous ones, but still I think there’s something in common.

I think the reason is that there I was relaxed and I was away from my routine problems. It was a very nice place, a small island with only a few people. Pleasant sound, the sun. It was amazing. How long did it take to make the series?

Having a time limit helped me. When I come back from Israel I would like to go to Marseille once again for one week. I would like to keep doing this project. There are a lot of curious places and the nature changes all the time. It was winter, February, when I was there. But it’s Marseille so I wore T-shirt moving around the island and when I went back to Prague it was -20. (laughing) What do you usually prefer film or digital? Yes, I prefer film, the middle format and 35mm. Although the project about the gallery was done with a digital camera. I have one series made in classical black and white. Once I did a video project. There are a lot of ways to express my feelings. How do you approach working on series? At the very beginning I have some idea of a place or some colour. What about the island, it was simple, because it was only one island and women. I used to head for the island and find some place and I was time and space limited. It was great, because there weren’t any weird things like in the city, where there are a lot of people, colours and other stuff. It was only the island, no colours and a big rock. From time to time I came across some branches and some colours different from white.

What kind of pictures had you been taking before you entered FAMU? It was more documentary photos. I think they resemble these pictures visually, so I somehow returned to the style that I had had 4 years ago.

But sometimes I have the idea at the beginning and end up getting something absolutely different. And do you try to make some changes in such case

It seems like you are investigating forms, lines, the nature… I don’t think it’s good. Then everything turns into chaos.

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I think there are a lot of symbols that can be associated with women. They seem erotic to me. There’s a feeling that you can look at 2 or 3 shots of women and then at these ones. Because a woman is very close to nature, the birth and the death are close to the nature. I was in Marseille, it’s a big city, with crowds of people, lots of noise and dust. I headed for that island and realized that it was the right place. I used to take a girl from Marseille with me and it

Tell us about your series called "Yoga". It was at the beginning of my studies. For me it was kind of investigation of people who do yoga under the temperature +42 for 90 minutes and their body. It was a group of 50 people in the very small room with mirrors coloured in

bright pink. It was really extraordinary. As it was +42 all these people sweat a

What does photography mean to people? Why do people do the art?

lot. I tried it twice. You become completely wet at once and all this smell. And

(we are all laughing)

you know it’s very expensive, so very rich people come there. It’s a place for women and homosexuals, I think.

It’s a topic for 5 hours long conversation. I regard the photography as an essential part of the society. It’s kind of therapy for somebody, a way of

Three years ago I regarded it as a social theme. It is still a social theme, but

relaxing and for a very small group it’s a job. In Czech Republic for an artist the

besides that now I see something from my mother in it. A place that is wet,

art-market is not easy to survive. I think it is a problem and I don’t think that it

humid. Women prefer this sport, there’s 80% of women, 10% of homosexuals

is going to improve. The art is a tricky issue in Europe and all over the world, I

and 5% of men. I like this place and the color was so wrong. That time

think. ¶

everybody used grey colours for their pictures and it was so boring. So I took a risk to do it in pink. Crazy pink! (Michal is miming the blowing up of the mind – FIX) I took these pictures after the training. After 90 minutes spent in the room

Michal Adamovsky, Czech Republic

the women and men looked so tired.

website: www.michaladamovsky.com, page on FAMU's website:

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foto.amu.cz/en/michal-adamovsky-12

Vaclav Kyval Vaclav works for one of the top Czech banks. He invited us to have a talk in his office. Where there are banks there is money. Where there’s money there are security measures. At the checkpoint we were met by armed security, who wrote down our data and handed over the guest passes. Then it was a long way past green lawns and decorative trees, halls and elevators, bank personnel and conference rooms. Finally Vaclav opened the next door and we found ourselves on the roof. The view of the industrial part of Prague from above and ant-size office clerks somewhere below, all this creates an atmosphere for an enjoyable conversation about the photography, "life, the universe and everything". FIX: How did you get into photography? Vaclav Kyval: An interesting question. I think it all started at the secondary school or may be sometime later at the university. I started from the digital photography. I was crazy about the technology and I would buy new cameras all the time. The quality of the photos themselves wasn’t a big deal for me. So two years of constant expenses on photography equipment gave no result. And I just said "Stop!" to myself and bought a medium-format Mamiya. Using it I took my first shots of the architecture and the deserted places: the churches on the Czech border, the Jewish cemeteries, etc. Later I bought Hasselblad. I still pay lots of attention to the equipment, but now I use the film only. At the moment you are combining your main job and the photography. But they are completely different things. I take photos for myself, sometimes for my friends, but I never do it for sale or something like that. It is about the balance, I believe. On the one hand, there’s my job. I work for a big company in Prague. Surely, it is great when you get

the salary or see your bank account statement. But on the other hand, you are still looking for something that you lack at work. I don’t want to talk about the escape or something like this. It is more about how to keep the balance between your working and private life. What kind of education do you have? I got IT-education at the University of Economics in Prague. Let’s say that my education is mix of economic and IT one. I studied at the department of system-oriented analysis. I work within my specialty. I deal with analytics of technical requirements problems, work out the technical documentation. Would you like to get photography education? I would, if I were younger. Now I am 31 and it’s a problem. There are different photo schools, not in Prague, let’s say in Ostrava (the town that borders Poland), where you can find distance learning programmes. But I don’t think that it’s a good idea to see your teacher twice a month. It’s not enough. If I had had a chance to become a child again, I’d have gone to study architecture. Imagine the situation – you quit and deal with photography only. What do you think? Certainly, it’s possible, but I am bound to die of hunger in this case. If you want to be a professional, you should have lots of connections and you must know how "to sell yourself". I wouldn’t want to be such a person.

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What’s your attitude towards criticism?

I try to pay attention to the problems in my works. But only one my friend has photography education. I can discuss lots of issues with him including the philosophy matters of photography essence. Whereas most of my friends just take ordinary shots on vacations or family holidays. I try to print and show some of my works. It is better perceived on paper that on a computer screen. © Vaclav Kyval, photos from the series "Architecture"

They look at them and say: "It’s nice!" or "Cool!" But we can’t call it critique. This is a real problem. I lack people who I can discuss my works with. Didn’t you manage to get the critique from the Internet? There are some national web services in Czech Republic, where you can upload your photos. When I was only beginning doing photography, I wasn’t successful on such sites at all. (laughing) I was said "The horizon is slanted!" or "The light is wrong, idiot!" and other similar things. After such arguments you usually have the only one desire - not to take pictures anymore, never. Looking at your photos of architecture, you can feel how deep is your interest in this theme. It seems like you are investigating the forms of buildings, as if you are trying to understand them. I don’t shoot buildings from the bottom to the top. Never. For instance, I go up the hill and my only aim is to take a photo of a building from the bottom to the top. It might be possible, but I don’t need it at all. I try to focus on the details, play with the form and what is hidden in it – the core. So you are more interested in objects than in people, aren’t you? Yes, I am. When you want to take a portrait photo of a friend, he says to you: "No, no, what are you shooting? Take a photo of me against this tree!" I hate such kind of photos, but most of my friends know only this one. I am really happy when I manage to take "a true portrait". How do you find themes and places for your series? There’s a wonderful resource called hrady.cz. With the help of it you can choose any point in Czech Republic and look around to see what interesting objects are nearby: architecture monuments, castles, cemeteries, whatever. It’s a good way to find new ideas and new places for the shootings. I got interested in Jewish theme because after the Holocaust the whole class of people just disappeared. Almost without exception, all synagogues and cemeteries became deserted. Apart from the Jewish themselves, who aren’t here anymore and some interested people like me, nobody cares about them. It is very sad. I take pictures of these places because in about 20 or 50 years they will just disappear. Tell us more about the series "Fragments" The series "Fragments" was made in one place, in the Strahov stadium. This stadium is the largest in the world (According to some sources it has the largest square of the pitch (63 000 m), the grand stand is capable to receive more than 220 000 spectators - FIX). It’s of the incredible size. We get used to gigantomania, but when

you are standing on the stand and can’t see people on the opposite stand, as they are too far, it gives you some food for thought. Now the stadium is divided into 5 or 6 pitches used for trainings. But he grand stands are abandoned. From time to time the discussion about pulling them down are held as it isn’t clear what they are for. The photos that form the series "Fragments" illustrate what is left on the stands from the tramps and graffiti people. What encourages you to take pictures of deserted places? One of the main impulses is to find such places, feel the atmosphere and, probably, save them in the history. It is important for me. For instance, on the borderline, where the German lived before and during the Second World War, there are deserted churches. After the war all German people went to Germany and Austria and Czech Republic occupied this place. So the churches are still deserted and nobody cares about them. That is for the better, may be, as nobody touches them. You can feel the history in them and there’s almost no graffiti. There are some inscriptions in German and different symbols left here and there. At once you get a feeling that it wasn’t so long ago. There are no such places left in Prague. They all are destroyed. ¶ © Vaclav Kyval, photos from the series "Fragments"

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Vaclav Kyval, Czech Republic on flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/vaso80/

Black and white photography

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Catalogue

Mikhail Palinchak

Valeria Rotova

Eduard Vladimirovich

Sergey Chikharev

Tatyana Malysheva

Anna Shilina

Denis Gayvoronsky

Alexander Smirnov

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Kirill Kotov

Alexey Fedotov

Margarita Prokazova

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Natalia Pastukh

Anna Ermolova

Margarita Prokazova

Tatyana Malysheva

Alexey Fedotov

Anna Ermolova

Kirill Kotov

Victor Batkovich

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Alexey Fedotov

Ksenia Zasetskaya

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Fed Tunik

Mikhail Abramov

Ksenia Zasetskaya

Elina Karaeva

Mikhail Palinchak

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Alexey Fedotov

Olga Smotrova

Yulia Stakhovskaya

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Mikhail Palinchak

Evgenia Sukhanova

Igor Ustinsky

Olga Gnatkova

Igor Ustinsky

Anna Shilina

Ksenia Zasetskaya

Vika Bykovskaya

Victor Batkovich

FIX #2/2012

Natalia Pastukh

Color photography

Catalogue

FIX #2/2012

Georgy Obukhov

Vladimir Laur

Kirill Kotov

Vladimir Laur

Anton Petrov

Olga Gnatkova

FIX #2/2012

Daniil Vavilov

Georgy Obukhov

FIX #2/2012

Denis Demkov

Ksenia Zasetskaya

Evgeny Nodvikov

Polina Kuleshova

FIX #2/2012

Mikhail Palinchak

Mikhail Denisov

Nikolay Razuvaev

FIX #2/2012

Masha Scarb

Anton Petrov

Darya Samuylova

Kseniya Golubeva

Mikhail Palinchak

Sergey Vityazev

Vladimir Laur

FIX #2/2012

Mikhail Denisov

Georgy Obukhov

FIX #2/2012

Dina Belenko

Anna Basya

Georgy Obukhov

Vladimir Laur

Ekaterina Loginova

Mikhail Palinchak

FIX #2/2012

Fed Tunik

Iro Iro

FIX #2/2012

Anna Ermolova

Roman Gashanin

Mikhail Malyshev

FIX #2/2012

Alexey Fedotov

Elmira Minkina

FIX #2/2012

Kirill Kotov

Ludmila D.

Igor Ustinsky

Anna Ermolova and Ivan Putintsev

Nikolay Razuvaev

Samaria Samaria

Daniil Vavilov

Anton Petrov

FIX #2/2012

Elina Karaeva

Darya Samuylova

Published photographers: Photographer

Photographer

Mikhail Malyshev

Mikhail Abramov

Elmira Minkina

Victor Batkovich

33, 37

Evgeny Nodvikov

Dina Belenko

38, 40, 44

Georgy Obukhov

Vika Bykovskaya

30, 35, 36, 41, 43, 45

Mikhail Palinchak

39, 49

32, 37

Natalia Pastukh

Sergey Vityazev

39, 42, 49

Eduard Vladimirovich

Margarita Prokazova

Denis Gayvoronsky

Ivan Putintsev

Roman Gashanin

42, 49

Olga Gnatkova

Anton Petrov

Nikolay Razuvaev

36, 39

Valeria Rotova

Kseniya Golubeva

Samaria Samaria

Ludmila D.

42, 49

Darya Samuylova

Denis Demkov

Masha Scarb

Mikhail Denisov

42, 43

Alexander Smirnov

Anna Ermolova

32, 33, 46, 48

Olga Smotrova

34, 37, 40

Yulia Stakhovskaya

Evgenia Sukhanova

Ksenia Zasetskaya Maria Zamaevskaya Elina Karaeva Kirill Kotov Polina Kuleshova Vladimir Laur

FIX #2/2012

Page

Anna Basya

Daniil Vavilov

Page

35, 49 31, 33, 38, 48 41 38, 43, 44

34, 45 36, 37, 48 31, 32, 33, 35, 47 31, 37

Fed Tunik Igor Ustinsky Alexey Fedotov Anna Shilina

Ekaterina Loginova

Sergey Chikharev

Tatyana Malysheva

31, 32

Iro Iro

Maria Zamaevskaya

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FIX #2/2012

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photo by Georgy Obukhov