On January 25, 2011 an official opening of Czech Press Photo exhibition will take place at Czech Info Center, Castle Praha Bldg., Mapo-gu, Seoul (www.czechinfo.or.kr, www.castlepraha.co.kr). The exhibition will be opened by The President of the Society of Korean Photography and the Director of Daegu Biennale 2010, Prof. Lee Yong-Hwan and Ambassador of the Czech Republic to the Republic of Korea, Mr. Jaroslav Olša, jr.

Czech Press Photo is an annual competition and an exhibition, which aim is to bring an independent photographic testimony of life at home and abroad as seen by professional photojournalists living in the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic. The objective of the exhibition is to enable the public to eyewitness the events and phenomena of the previous year. It also attempts to motivate photographers to a personal approach in the everyday stereotype of their work and to stimulate the development of photojournalism.

Czech Press Photo also shows photographs that, for various reasons and despite the quality, do not get published in the medias. In the interest of impartiality, the works are judged by an independent jury, which changes every year.

When in 1995 Czech Press Photo together with the exhibition entered its first year, it was with the credo “to yield an independent visual testimony of life”. The word ‘independent’ played a key role in the formulation of the credo and it did not only mean the fact that after more than forty years of serving the communist propaganda, Czech and Slovak journalistic photography finally had an opportunity to offer a visual testimony independent of political systems. Furthermore, it expressed an ambition to be independent from the ever growing commercialism and the many pressures in the media world, from this or that taste or even from the lack of interest expressed by the media. Right from its beginnings, Czech Press Photo had an ambition to be a platform for photographers’ personal testimonies including those, which for various reasons and despite its relevancy and quality, the media would not find a use for.

Today, sixteen years later, we can say that Czech Press Photo is doing well.

www.czechpressphoto.cz

Longer text about the history of Czech Press Photo by its director and curator Ms. Daniela Mrázková is here