Tomki Němec

ISBN: 978-80-7215-329-9|Published: 2008|Pages: 144
Binding: Softbound|Format: 160 x 180 mm|Graphic design: Pavel Lev, Studio Najbrt
http://www.tomkin.cz/

Focusing on black-and-white documentary photography and photojournalism, Tomki Němec, born in 1963, is a leading Czech photographer. He began to make his mark in the 1980s, mainly on the Czech anti-establishment photography scene. In the early 1990s he was a personal photographer of Czechoslovak President Václav Havel, and in 2001 he published a volume of photographs that constitute a unique document of Havel’s first term in office. Němec has twice been awarded prizes in the World Press Photo contest. His work has been published in a number of periodicals around the world, including Der Spiegel, Die Zeit, Los Angeles Times Magazine, Le Monde, Paris Match, The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, Time Magazine, and Respekt. His black-and-white documentary photos, which form the basis of the work he does strictly for himself (and of this book), were taken all over the world. They almost always depict “ordinary” people in daily situations, presented in a way that reflects their personal lives as well as the history and politics that press down on them. A characteristic of Němec’s works is their precise composition. The photographs in this volume are introduced with an article by Josef Chuchma, a critic of Czech photography, whose writing has been published in a number of books on photography.