Dear friends,

 

When we consider what could be the characteristic attribute of our ten-year cooperation, we unanimously agree that there is not just one common denominator but two lines of movement. 

 

The first is, without doubt, the transition from analogue to digital imaging, fully respecting the classical chemical process and searching tirelessly for ways of using digital technologies to their maximum capacity, especially where the negative or the positive was created only as an intermedia for the need of the press. 

 

When, in the school year of 2004/2005, we faced, together with the Orange Factory first year students, a very demanding task of procuring photographs for the new catalogue for the Škoda Auto Musem in Mladá Boleslav in such a way that they would match the highest possible quality of specialised studio productions in developed countries, and at the same time preserving the atmosphere of a museum exhibit. We started with a 4" by 5" view camera and a medium format camera with a digital back. However, very soon we understood that working with the analogue system would be much more expensive and, in addition, we would have to deal with a nerve-wrecking procedure. While the digital process represented a higher quality control on the monitor immediately after taking the picture, it also provided endless possibilities of further post-production work. This way we arrived at multi-exposure photography that catapulted us to conceptual levels of boundless image game. Meanwhile, starting with the 2006/2007 academic year, we had a chance to expand our cooperation into a long-term educational programme in the newly established Studio of Applied and Advertising Photography at the Faculty of Art and Design UJEP in Ústí nad Labem, where the four-year baccalaureate and the following magisterial studies allow more time for the realisation of the second line of our endeavour…

 

We can call it an endeavour to break up the traditional schizophrenia of art schools and the art community in general – to disturb the tendency to accent the clash between personal and commissioned work. We do not want to list how many historical artefacts were made on commission and for money but we want to focus on an educational process which tries to develop the students’ creativity, because with all the captivating pedagogical work we are strengthening our belief that the work of the next generation of young authors is becoming deeper and socially more relevant in all the places where they succeed in inserting their creativity into the visualisation of important life topics of contemporary society.