Jan Hendryk
mail@fotografion.cz
Photography has historically captured the reality previously recorded only by skilled painters and draftsmen. With her first transformation and experiments, she became creative and became a new art industry. Its function of capturing reality remains, and at the time of electronization and globalization of our world it is its mirror and chronicle. Millions of people today testify to themselves and their loved ones by digital cameras and mobile phones, capture reality in its most sensitive and dramatic forms, and share it worldwide. Art photography itself is an academic field for me, where it is possible to move somewhere between taste and kitsch. That’s what I’m avoiding.
My approach is to use photography only as an element to express what a cool and pragmatic lens cannot. But I also want to show what people and objects don’t say about themselves. Feelings that, when one stops and listens, can be perceived and hard to affect.
I create photopictures. The road to this was long. I started to take a photo in the 80’s, when I took the Practice MTL5B, and enjoyed the darkness of film evocation, the red light chamber and the scent of developer and fixer, but also disappointment and enthusiasm when the magnifier portrayed my work. And then there were photos, shiny, wet and I saw again in the light what was caught by the lens. And I was not satisfied. It was cold, frozen, motionless. Just a moment, captured and stiff, whatever I did. Up to digital photography, I discovered what photography offers me – story, reality, and fiction in one single image – through layers, blending, working with people, things, looking for perspectives, and everything related to the story. And most importantly – constant discovery, doubt, exploration – before the result emerges. The photo itself is the beginning of my journey. Until the next journey through the theme brings results.
That’s why my collages are not photos – it’s a story. There must be time for narration and listening. If you like, stop and try to feel what I’m telling you.