The first ever edition of South Moravian Photo Workshop in Lednice 2009 is history. During the months of July and August, five reputable photographers led five workshops with Czech and foreign students. We were pleased to welcome to Lednice photography enthusiasts from Romania, Austria, Slovakia, Germany, Finland and the USA. The students spent three summer weeks in Lednice and its surroundings where they were coached by renowned lectures as they learnt to discover the beauty of colour and black and white photography.

Photo Workshop was opened on 23 July by the lecturer Evžen Sobek. Jindřich Štreit’s workshop was full as of 24 July, on 27 July Jiří Turek took on the role of teacher and so did Jan Pohribný on 2 August and Antonín Kratochvíl on 4 August.

Thanks to the generosity of Photo Workshop’s partners, our students were able to work with top quality photographic equipment and were able to access interesting locations by car or by boat. Their photographs have appeared and will appear in media as well as at exhibitions that map different workshops and their purposely diverse coverage.

Students of photographic schools and professional photographers were able to appreciate this practical experience side by side with reputable photographers and lecturers. For students it was a unique experience to spend a summer holiday week filled with valuable advice and information.

An integral part of SMPW was to advertise South Moravia. We have advertised this region through photography and we shall continue presenting it through exhibitions, seminars, public photographic projections, publishing activities and cultural events that are aimed at supporting local folklore and traditions. It is obvious that South Moravian Photo Workshop will be heard of again and that you will have a chance to see the work of its students sometime soon.

Evžen Sobek: Blue life and other stories from the land of wine
Evžen Sobek’s workshop brought a distinctive picture of South Moravian region which is often called the land of wine. It was not its aim, however, to show this region in its typical view but as a place where tradition meets current lifestyle. It is where, next to a vineyard, we come across picturesque fishing villages, families from various parts of Europe enjoying their holiday and kite surfing enthusiasts.

While photographing, Sobek’s students used their authorial view, they searched for original motifs, exceptional phenomena, discovered new relations amongst things and therefore created a unique “photographic portrait” of the local area.

Students, equipped with Sobek’s professional advice, managed to report on fishing villages in Dolní Věstonice, Pavlov, they visited wine making villages of Valtice, Úvaly and Hlohovec. They caught on camera the magic of the Nové Mlýny dam and they were inspired by the lake scenery around Pohořelice, Strachotín and Rakvice.

Jindřich Štreit: Life and work along the border
Jindřich Štreit led the second workshop from 24-30 July. His students worked under professional supervision at various different locations. With camera in hand they were able to live through a working summer with the Vlašicovi family in Hlohovec. They experienced the festive atmosphere of a food festival in folk costumes in Moravská Nová Ves and they also documented working premises of hosting My Hotel in Lednice. They set off to Ratíškovice to see a folklore band Robky and they travelled to John’s Castle in a horse carriage of Jiří Švásta.

As a result of their week’s work they presented a picture of a daily as well as a festive life in this border area. Jindřich Štreit opened the workshop with a public presentation of his work. His presentation attracted not only members of general public but also students of Western Michigan University. They were accompanied to Lednice by Jan Pohribný, one of the photo workshop’s lecturer.

Jiří Turek: Portrait? Fashion? Nudity!
Jiří Turek offered his students a non-traditional view of traditional categories of photography. In Lednice they were working with the best available source of light, the daylight. Everybody was subjected to the same working conditions – just physics and the eye. The students searched how to best use the light, where to help it a little, where to restrain it or shade it. Jiří Turek assisted students with the selection of models, locations, the actual photograph taking and the use of the light being natural as well as artificial. The lecturer’s advice led to a final retouching of a picture before printing it in a magazine. The students led by this renowned fashion photographer worked in the most attractive surroundings of Lednice. They took photographs in a local palm house, in the stylish and tranquil chambers of the Lichtenstein Dukes and also in a busy chateau park. They encountered curious tourists as well as unwelcome mosquitoes that mostly troubled the nude models.

Antonín Kratochvíl: Beneath the surface
The workshop led by Antonín Kratochvíl was about creation of portraits during which its participants got beneath the surface, to the actual core of the subject. According to the lecturer, portrait is all about capturing the photographer-object relationship, the magical moment of getting to know each other. It is a moment of clarification. Sometimes a gift, sometimes a coincidence. Portrait gives the ability to dare, amuse, excite and enlighten, to be strong and memorable.

Antonín Kratochvíl urged his students to photograph their subjects in a completely different way, to feel what they feel and how they move. And while doing so to capture that varied and complicated human being.

Kratochvíl’s students photographed arranged and spontaneous portraits. They worked day and night, documented various events, their work and they even photographed each other. During their week’s work they visited poor housing, a field, a pub and an asylum home, a children’s home, a vicarage and a deserted customs house.

Jan Pohribný: Inner light of landscape
Jan Pohribný kept his students occupied with available sources of nature, with space, architecture and his own creative imagination. All that led them to use procedures and techniques from the field of sculpture, scenography, installation, painting and so on. Special attention was given to the use of natural and artificial background light in exterior, as well as to the application of colour in space. As part of their work, students worked with a model in the background, the model being the part of landscape installation and performance.

Jan Pohribný brought their students closer to some basic photographic landscape skills for example the use of a large format camera, filters, divided expositions, the use of digital camera and so on.