About
It all started in Czechoslovakia , when I was about age 10 and got my first camera – a $ 3.50 little piece of plastic called Pioneer, with which you were supposed to never, ever, take pictures facing the sun. I still have a couple pictures (taken, of course, with the sun in my back) somewhere, many of which feature my rather photogenic shadow. In high school, I moved on to my father’s SLR Exa 2a with a Tessar 50 mm lens. It was at this time that photography became a hobby for me, along with creating audiovisual slideshows. To this I added a passion for hiking in the wild, forming an ideal combination for a budding (as well as any other) photographer. In college, I studied Electrical Engineering, but also the Art Photography Institute (Institut Výtvarné Fotografie).
After graduation, I was thrilled at the opportunity to work for the SCARS studio (Science & Art), where I could use my Electrical Engineering skills, but also work partially as a professional photographer. This job took me all over the world – I worked in places like Japan, India, Kazakhstan, Kirgizia, Latvia, Spain, Tunisia, Kuwait etc. Working in a country, by the way, is by far the best way to get to know it – visiting as a tourist can’t even begin to compare. After the 1989 Velvet Revolution, I founded, with colleagues from college, CUE s.r.o.; the company developed and produced control systems for AV slideshows. Then in 1999, I was approached by my uncle from Los Angeles with the task of helping him design a system to automatically control ventilation in a woodworking shop . It was a new challenge in a new country, and I went for it – and thus Ecogate, Inc. was born. Around the year 2000 I made the slow and painful transition from analog to digital, and life would never be the same. I used to like the darkroom for that mystical feeling that only those who develop their own films and prints can understand, but in the end, I preferred clicking a mouse to pouring chemicals.
I’ve gone through many a camera in my life, from that plastic Pioneer, to my father’s Exa, then to the medium format Mamyia 645, which I loved with a passion. I also had the first professional autofocus SLR Minolta 9000, and even small LOMO. My first real digital camera was an Olympus E-10. Then came the Canon Digital Rebel, the Canon 20D, and finally the full-frame Canon 5D. I took a college course of Photoshop in 2004.
I’m extremely thankful for having had the chance to move to America, if only to explore the fantastic outdoors those are all around. The European landscape feels like one oversized, neatly arranged garden in comparison.
TO BE CONTINUED……