As I'm slowly processing my shots from Norway, some look really odd and different from what I usually appreciate because of lighting conditions. I simply was not too lucky this time. But having been there with no other agenda, after a little while I got excited about thinking of how to deal and experiment with what the nature offered. It was often snowing so I had to put my equipment into a harsh weather testing quite regularly when trying to shoot something. And I must confess it failed every now and then. Apparently, Hasselblad does not seem to have designed its H1 for rough outdoor conditions. Especially metering system in the viewfinder suffered badly from the wet and cold. I had to restart the system couple of times, or even remove the viewfinder and clap it back on. To my surprise, P30 back passed with no fault whatsoever.
Read moreLofoten Dream - Part 1
Imbalance
The whole story started as usual. Marek called me in early November 2010 and ask me: “would you like to go to Lofoten?”. Since, this location was always on my travel agenda, I didn’t have to think twice to agree. We immediately started to plan what is the best time to go, and we kind of didn’t think about one little detail, to where exactly we should go. We just simply bought plane tickets to Tromso and didn’t even consider any alternative destination. We had a chance to regret our ignorance pretty soon, because Tromso is actually not in Lofoten, but is further north, something around 440 km away from the place we wanted to go.
Read moreShooting Northern Lights
Some of you might have seen this picture already on lightharmony or facebook but I can find no better to kick off the Photo of the Week category than this one. It's the result of the most exciting photographic adventures I have gone through this year and perhaps ever. I've been dreaming to witness the Northern Lights for the last few years but only this March all elements came in alignment and I got lucky. Originally, I just wished to watch and photograph it. Then, let it happily rest in my archive and pursue other little projects. But the magic of aurora can't be described with words and I only know now that the night I saw it was just the beginning of our long-term dating.
Read moreMichael Kenna - Photo Exhibitions
I would call myself a lucky man, since I have had a chance to visit two of Michael Kenna’s exhibitions during the last six months. The first exhibition took place in Amsterdam in November 2010 and my wife had actually organized the whole trip for me (including personal meeting with Michael) as an early X-Mas present:) I was very excited when I arrived to Amsterdam and a few hours latter I was heading to the gallery for the opening ceremony. To my big surprise the exhibition did not take place in a big fancy gallery as one would have expected, but in the very small one, the smallest I have ever seen:) In this case it was prime example when the saying “size does not matter” was proven more than true. The gallery had an amazing atmosphere and the photographs were absolutely awesome. I spent quite a some time observing all the pictures and at the end I got enough courage to go and meet face to face the photographer. I did say to him something like “ehm, my wife sent me over here” and it was like saying a special secret code. He was fully aware of the whole deal and we started to talk and talk about photography, personal life and much more. One hour later I felt I should let other people to have a chance to talk to him, so I asked him to sign some of his older books I have in my collection and I left with my mind in the sky.
Read moreNotes from Iceland I.
If you’re flying to Iceland one day, it’s likely you’ll take Icelandair because there’s not too many services that connect Reykjavik with the continental Europe. In such case, don’t miss your chances to browse though the on-board entertainment options and listen to the Icelandic music (not talking about folk, which I avoided by miles). Apart from the usual suspects as Sigur Ros and Bjork (remember Sugarcubes? :-)), you can get to hear less known bands and musicians that are often nothing short of pure reflections of a meditative remoteness of the island. There’s no better preparation for ambient mood of the place than giving ear to Ampop or Blindfold in your headphones and watching icy toppings of volcanos, wrinkled faces of glaciers, black sand beaches framed by white lines of crashing waves or countless veins of rivers deltas as the plane have reached Iceland. And yes, if tired by the melancholy, play Emiliana Torrini.
Read moreWelcome to Land & Colors
I have met Marek many years ago thanks to one of few (those days) servers related to photography and we become very good friends over time. Together we started project called LIGHTHARMONY more than five years ago and now we are trying to move further with Land and Colors project, which should give us more active interaction with outside world and allow us to present not only our photographs, but also our thoughts and experiences relating to photography and traveling more frequently. Land and Colors project is also here to provide a unique opportunity to all of you to buy our limited additions of fine art prints (see more here). These fine art prints will be printed digitally with the highest standards regarding permanency and color accuracy and we will also do our best to offer you the highest standards in terms of aesthetics and artistic feel.
Read moreLaunching Land & Colors
It's been 5 years since I started to use the internet to communicate my photography. At that time, it all was much less interactive than today and the static web gallery could usually be at the top of any ambitions. Fair enough, we have been successfully running our lightharmony.com site, which still attracts lots of attention. No wonder as you can find there the selection of best work of some excellent emerging landscape photographers from Czech and Slovak geographical space. The website is simple and the communication goes one way - we present the images and if we're lucky, some people will stumble upon them, browse through them and share them. Do not get me wrong - I love what we are doing there and will continue to do but I have a feeling I need to move closer to establishing my own identity. This is why Land & Colors was designed by Ota and me.
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