I'm blown away.
By the Lake Baikal, by its immensity and liveliness; its subtletness and tranquility. You get it all - monumental vistas with shorelines, islands and rocks, and tiny little details sculpted in the ice under your feet. Loud cracks of the ice plates and absolute silence, occasionally broken by blasts of the freezy wind forcing tears in to your eyes.
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With haste, I decided to refresh my winter photography stock. This time round I went East. To explore the beauties of Russian landscapes. Five and a half hour flight from Moscow to Irkutsk and about 50 minutes drive and here I stand, on the shore of Lake Baikal.
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I remain amazed by what today's chip can see and capture in the night skies. This opens up a whole new discipline where no more complicated multi-shot blending is apparently necessary to create a night landscape image with an interesting impact.
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To my surprise, the season seems to be still on. Plenty of tourists and each of them must use two cars or more. But that's the only flaw, otherwise I'm having fun. As much as one can have with only himself, getting to seriously think about stuff that there's normally no time for and talk about things that should have never left his mouth.
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First off, we would like to thank you all so much for the interest in our exhibition. Also, the turnout for the opening could hardly be any larger, we're so grateful! It will take few more days only so those who missed it for any reason, please don't be scared to visit Cafe Velryba and check it out. Here's what you get to see in colour, but it's always more impressive live than virtually:
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I'm writing this on-board of Aeroflot flight to Sochi. Apart from many other curiosities (a huge and almost empty Airbus A-330 for two-hour domestic flight from Moscow), I was just asked to fill out the questionnaire about alcoholic beverages I like the most. Truly starting to love this country and the airline that is so determined to hear their clients and act upon it.
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We are extremely pleased to announce that today, our exhibition of colour and black and white photographs from Scotland begins. It takes place in Cafe Velryba, Opatovicka 24, Prague 1 until September 30.
You all are invited to come and see 39 images, of which 20 are hand made by Ota via his traditional darkroom process and the remaining 19 are not so much hand made, but beautifully printed by my Epson with love.
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I have been using a lot of different photo backpacks over the years, and I have been carrying them to many different places from mountains to deserts and sea costs. Therefore I would say that I might have some experience in this field, but I have never felt like sharing my thoughts with our readers. However, I would like to make an exception now, and tell you about the latest addition to my backpack family. I was not particularly thinking about getting myself a new backpack, since my old one is still okay, until Marek told me about new f-stop system. It imediately sounded like a perfect solution for me my few days long photo expeditions here in the Alps, where I also have to cary some other stuff beside my camera gear.
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If you would like to get yourself a fine art photograph and help to support people in Nepal in the same time, you can help artist from Art Upfront to rise funds by buying their fine art photographs. A lot of artist, including me, decided to be part of this big effort and donate entire profit from sale to charity. You can see all available photographs here.
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We would like to let you know that Ota’s silver gelatin prints are now available for sale trough Artupfront online gallery curated by two very know persons in the wold of fine art photography Hilde Bodbij and Frans Peter Verheyen.
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I’m able to do all my fine art printing work at home with (almost) no compromise. I will show you today how simple it is to achieve consistently predictable results with tools and software you are probably utilising anyway.
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I did mention my latest project “Small World” here some time ago, and I have been continuously working on it since than. This week I went to see my friend Jorg Brockmann who is a photographer and gallery owner here in Geneva. I did ask him for his opinion about this project and It was really nice and productive discussion and I was positively surprised by his comments and suggestions he made to me at the end.
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I went to Scotland again last week. It was a family and friends outing this time. I relearnt to enjoy great outdoors in a normal daytime, in a slower tempo, with completely different people and with no camera...
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I attended workshop organized by Bruce Percy on island of Eigg in Scotland two years ago. The workshop itself was amazing experience for me and I really enjoyed the company of Bruce and other photographers. It was also my first visit to Scotland and found it so beautiful that I put Scotland firmly to my photo destination list.
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If you are a fan of true traditional black and white photography, you should know David Kirby and his amazing website with wonderfully poetic name Twelve Small Squares. David is a darkroom purist whose work stands out for miles on the net and I only wish I will see it once with my own eyes. Check out how he studies shapes and conveys deep moods in his landscape imagery, as an example.
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We have been very quiet over the last few weeks, but it should change soon. Today I would like to let you know that I just added some new photographs from Scotland into our gallery section here. These photographs represent my selection for our upcoming exhibition Marek and I will have in September this year in Prague.
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I would like to let you know, that I am going to have small photo exhibition in Prague. I will be shoving my silver prints from Iceland in Cafe Pražírna in Prague 2. Exhibition starts this week on Thursday February 26, 2015, and I will be present there from 6:00 pm until 10:00 pm, just in case you will be around and would like to see the photographs and me:) In case you will not be able to make it this week, do not worry, the photographs will be there until April 17, 2015.
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I have been living in Czech for couple of years now, but I must say it's been uneasy to develop any sort of relationship with Czech landscape.
It definitely worked better with people...
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Marek recently wrote reviews on Phase One medium format digital system, therefore I thought I should add short review or rather to say my opinion about fully analog Mamiya RB 67 medium format camera. Analog photography has become very marginal over the years and a lot of cameras and lenses had been discontinued, but I can say that new wave of interest in film photography has been emerging recently. If you are thinking about experimenting with film or moving one step higher from 35 mm camera system, this might help you.
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I wanted to write little review about my beautiful Mamiya RB 67 camera today, but at the very last moment I decided to share some inspiration, which I have found recently. Those who follow our blog regularly know that i am not the biggest fan of social networks and internet overall. But form time to time I am very happy that we have it, that we can find very interesting and inspiring things in the vast ocean of all the information available.
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