Jiří Zouhar
A long, long time ago, in a galaxy not so far away, I had absolutely no interest in photography and only the vaguest idea what terms like “exposure” or “composition” even meant.
Then one day, for reasons known only to God and with absolutely no clue what I was doing, I bought a little photo thingy, loaded my first roll of film with the help of the manual, and pressed the shutter. That was the end… or rather, the beginning.
The journey gradually took me from 35mm and medium format cameras, through smaller large format formats, to where I am today: the royal discipline of large format photography, producing negatives at least 20×25 cm (8×10”) in size and using antique lenses large enough to make people raise an eyebrows.
I also gave digital photography a try, but we never really got along. All that hard-to-describe genius saeculi woven into the image, the enchanting character of times gone by, the anticipation of seeing the final result. The magic of the entire process, the very quintessence of photography that completely drew me in, simply disappeared.
Funny how lifelong obsessions often begin with one completely random decision.