「Look at the Picture and Talk about the Painting」Josef Koudelka – Awanderingpoet

A 50-year life of wandering, with only a camera and film as his luggage, he achieved complete artistic independence – Josef Koudelka.

In the same place, at different times, I captured the current prosperity in Wenceslas Square. Koudelka, on the other hand, captured the scars of that era. This Czech-French photographer caused a sensation worldwide with the anonymous photos he took documenting the invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops into Prague in 1968. He began his exile in 1970 and never returned to his homeland since then, leading a life of being stateless and without a fixed residence for decades.

Koudelka’s camera lens was always focused on the marginalized groups and the forgotten corners. He traveled all over Europe, photographing the nomadic life of the Gypsies, capturing their cultural persistence and predicaments under political pressure with coarse grains and strong contrasts. Since 1986, he turned to panoramic photography, documenting the destruction of nature by industrialization, and those desolate ruins photos became his visual dagger aimed at the times.

He made “wandering” the most extensive creative material, proving that the best photography is one where every moment captured by the shutter is a part of one’s own life’s timeline.

The tea for today is all gone. Next time, I’ll brew a fresh pot and enjoy art with you again.