The Exclusive Photo Story of Professional Photographer Jan Vojtek

During my wife’s pregnancy we took a few moments to take some photos. As always, the more you try the better they get, but in this case I feel like we didn’t try enough. We liked the roses, their tenderness and the gentleness of the pregnancy as such but the composition ended up being “not quite” what we wanted. I would prefer to have the roses closer to us, so that the composition is more compact but the conversion into the soft tones has helped to deliver the “soft” atmosphere.

This is a snap shot of my wife Katka, being painted in a restaurant in South Africa. It’s part of their signature, the sitting is in small platforms in trees and the whole meal is more of an African experience. I wanted to include also the lady painting my wife’s face so that the photo includes all “elements” so to speak. I processed it afterwards in Nik Software as part of experimentation in order to get the soft feel through colors and blurriness.

During our trip to Tanzania, we spend some time in the bush taking in the beauty of wild Africa and ended the trip in Zanzibar. While walking around the historic streets of Stone Town, we took our time, stop here and there and took photos of things that caught our eyes. As one can imagine, the opportunities are literally endless. I was waiting for my wife to come out of the many small shops with scarfs when I saw these four muslim girls coming through the narrow street. I knew I would never be able to ask them for the shot so I impolitely waiting for the moment, readied my camera and then just brought it to my eye and snapped one shot. I am a shy photographer myself and I strive to be polite and respectful to people and their culture but at the same time, I know that some moments can’t be recreated in retrospect. If I were to walk up to these girls, they would probably not even listed to me let alone understand I am trying to respectfully get their permission to take a photo. And even if that would have worked, it would be staged and all the emotion and energy would be lost. Two of them are already “staring me down” a bit anyway.

This is by far the most profitable of my photos. I posted it online and made couple of sales. My wife and I moved to the Netherlands in 2006 and after a short world trip in 2009 we moved back indefinitely. During the winter of 2010, Netherlands got amazing amounts of snow. The traffic was deadlocked and everything went absolutely calm. While the country was fighting the snow, we took a tram to the center and spent 2 hours photographing this fantastic city. My wife always sees world in better composition then I do, that’s why I refer to her as the “creative director”. In this case, I was photographing from a different angle this location when she moved some 50m on and yell in my direction “I think you get a better angle from here”. And so I did. I love the canals, the bikes, the Dutch way of life and by capturing Amsterdam on such a unique moment, I feel certain satisfaction.

While taking a cruise in Seine in Paris, I wondered around the boat, looking for some unusual things to photograph. As we were approaching a bridge, I noticed a couple. It wasn’t until we got home that I noticed that she is involved with her cell phone while he is passionately kissing her cheek. I converted it to black and white to get the distraction of the colorful building out of the way and cropped it a bit to achieve a composition I liked more. I know I am engaged with my iPhone a lot so in a way I understand the girl but I still feel it’s such a shame we, I, let real life pass by while engaging in the electronic diary of it.

This was taken during our kitesurfing trip to Cumbuco, Brasil. After two weeks of wonderful wind conditions we decided to hire a 4×4 with a local driver and drive some 350km from Cumbuco to Jericoacoara along the Atlantic shore line. At one point we passed a cemetery, or a group of crosses, really close to the beach. The nearest village both ways was more that one hour drive, yet somehow the loved ones of these people were buried here. In the blistering heat, far away from any humans, the remains of people who once had families, brothers and sisters, were resting here. I took several photos, but this one really seemed to capture what I felt back there… that here was the end of the journey on this planet.

During our world trip we spend a few nights on a secluded beach near Albany, Western Australia. While reading the Lonely Planet, we found it hilarious that a wind farm was “the thing to see” since we lived in the Netherlands since 2006 where windmills are part of the image of the country. So we followed the advice and went to check it out. It was beautiful sunny day with some cloud cover and the slope covered in plants glided straight into the Pacific. While I loved the scenery in color, converting it to monochrome made it look a lot more dramatic. I do not think it’s particularly great shot but for me it was a way to experiment and learn how the reality I remember can be presented to to viewer in a completely different “package”.

I took this photo in Luang Prabang, Laos. Anyone visiting there focuses the most on the monks who live in the monasteries. Their morning walks through the streets have now become a tourist attraction and while I also took some photos there I preferred walking around and finding some other ways to capture the mesmerizing orange robes. These four monks were crossing from one side of Nam Khan river to the other to go to a monastery. I consider this photo more of a documentary than some great artistic effort.

The mesmerizing orange robe. This time, during sunset watching trip in Angkor, Cambodia. Hundreds of tourists gather on a near by hill to watch the sun go down and see the tops of the temples bathe in the warm sun beams. Though this particular sunset didn’t materialize due to passing shower, I captured this young monk sitting around peacefully. I asked his permission to which he nodded with a smile and remains of it still lingered on his face as I took the photo. I converted the background to have him and his robe pop up more.

While house hunting with my wife this past spring, we visited what will have become our hometown, Haarlem in the Netherlands. It was a beautiful sunny day, with light breeze and as we passed this place I felt the urge to capture it as it had so many elements which are typical for the Netherlands. The windmill, the channel, the houses with typical Dutch architecture and the ever-present clouds being blown around by various strength winds. I included the wooden “boat bumper” in the frame to get a bit of a sense of depth. While I liked the colored version I felt like the black and white conversion brought the smoothness to the whole scene.

This is to date the best shot of a wave I made. I am fascinated by them and I guess the fascination comes from my mother. Though I was born and raised in landlocked Slovakia, I remember how many times she showed me photos and pictures of waves and talked about them with admiration. This particular one was taken on the Easter Island at the end of our world trip in 2010. It is a crop from a larger shot with minor adjustment to saturation, vibrancy and a bit of burning. The waves travel for over 3000km before they hit this magical island. They come in sets and when you look out towards the ocean you can see them as small ripples lined up like airplanes waiting to land. When they come close they begin to rise and more than 50% of them turn into 5m + monsters. The local boys and girls surf these waves like they were whitewash. Truly magical.

The credit for this photos goes to my wife, who spotted the monk climbing up the bank of Nam Khan river in Luang Prabang while his friends were securing the boat they just used to cross the river. She pointed him out to me and mentioned something about “him, alone, the river – great setting, don’t you think?”. As always, she was right. To date this is one of my favorite photos from our stop in Laos. I am also happy with the adjustments which to me bring our the beautiful color of his robe, the slight orange/yellow cast reveals the morning light and his lonely presence captures the peace of the place.

As we made our way through Ta Prohm, one of the most fairytale like temples in Ankgor, Cambodia we walked all the way to the other side. There was a mother with three children selling cold drinks to the tourists who ventured that far back. While we sat around, resting from the heat of the sun in the shade of the big old trees, the girls began to play in the murky waters without any concern for snakes or other “wild life”. Their careless screams and laughter created a wonderful atmosphere. This photograph captures one of them neck deep, fooling around, and to me it seemed like a shot right out of the Jungle Book. We bought some cold cans of Coke and made our way back to our guide, leaving the girls to their worry free fun.

The beaches of Zanzibar have one of the whitest sands I came across on this blue planet of ours and the turquoise waters of the ocean are pure magic. However, these same beaches also contain the strange collision of cultures ad wealth so typical for our times. While the resorts are packed with us, wealthy tourists, the beaches are full of locals trying to sell you anything they can find and the locals who are just going after their everyday lives, probably because they have been banned by the more aggressive ones from trading with the tourists. I took this photo with my telephoto lens from far away as this girls stood with a few of her friends chatting in sign language and basic English with my wife. She was carrying seaweed in the bowl which she collected in the shallows of the lagoon. Several viewers of the photo expressed concerns about the choice of crop but to me the photo captures all the conflicting emotions I felt on the beach as it is.

I guess the title says it all. Snapped on a bridge in Central Park, New York, this tourist or maybe a local was busy with his phone and I am sure when he walked out of his room that morning he felt confident his hair due was just perfect. I took a different view on that 🙂

While visiting our home town of Pezinok, Slovakia renowned for its wine industry, we took the dogs out with my wife and our friends and walked through the vineyards as the sun was warming up the frost covered leaves and grapes. The only thing I added was a warm filter in the post but otherwise I felt like the photo captured the spirit of that morning perfectly.

As we set on top of a temple in Cambodia, a tropical downpour swooped in and we were hiding in the ancient doorway with my wife. I had my camera and lens covered with a rain cover but still tuck it under my poncho to avoid any damage. Our efforts to stay dry appeared pathetic as we watched what appeared to be two brothers and a sister slowly make their way through the old stairs made of stone. As all children around these tourist infested sites, the brothers instructed this young girl to come to us and bag for money. We have given her some chewing gums instead not to encourage begging as a way of life which keeps this kids out of school. She was not very happy but while she was engage with my wife in a “discussion” about money vs. chewing gums I got this great portrait of her. What I love about the photo are the drops of rain dripping from her hair and the rain drops falling in the background. Both colored and black and white versions are one of my favorites.

A shy boy walking on a dusty street in remote part of Cambodia became the object of my photograph. I saw him from afar but I also noticed that the minute I began to raise my huge lens, he got shy and tried to hide. I immediately stopped all my efforts and just smiled and him and waves. He relaxed a bit and kept on walking which looking over his shoulder as if to make sure I don’t snap a photo of him. Then, without a warning he took into the woods as if he felt more protect there. That’s when I brought the lens to my eyes and captures him looking over his shoulder. I don’t know what it was about him or the whole place, but he reminded me of a fairytale from my childhood about a brother and a sister who got lost in the woods and captured by evil witch. Even now, when I look back at the photo, I am instantly transferred back to that fairytale.

This is a photograph I hold dear because it closely captures the moment and atmosphere on a boat tour through floating village in Cambodia. As we mad four way past the floating village, I was sitting at the tip of our boat and saw a small canoe coming our way with the father, possibly a fisherman, slowly moving the boat and his daughter chilling relaxed in the back, with her fingers and toes gently touching the waters of the lake every now and then. The sun was almost setting and sent rays of warm light across the whole scene. We were lucky enough that their canoe passed east of us, getting washed in this warm light. I had maybe 2-3 seconds to turn my camera on, compose and shoot a few shots before the girl spotted me, sit straight up, looked at me with questioning eyes and their canoe disappeared.

We stayed at Hoi An in Vietnam just after hurricane passed by, so some of the streets still had 1 meter of sand on the sides. We decided to rent a bike and ride to near by Marble Mountain, which was an amazing place of massive caves and old buddhist temples. As everywhere in Viet Nam, there were people trying to sell us stuff and these two old ladies were in business of the smoking sticks as offering to gods. Their teeth were black from chewing tobacco but as most people in Asia, they smiled at us and remained nice even after we made only a tiny purchase with them. As we were walking away, one of them sat down to roll a cigarette which is what this photograph depicts. Though it lasted only a moment, it appeared as if she drifted away and escaped the place where her body was. That’s how I came to the title.

On our way to Beng Malea, Cambodia we passed hundreds of rice fields with the most amazing green color I have ever seen. I was mesmerized by it. As we left one village on a tuc-tuc I noticed an older woman in the field, so I asked the driver to pull over and walked back to see if I could photograph her. As I approached her I realized she was with what appeared to be her daughter and they were not tending the rice but collecting the weeds as food for their cattle or poultry. I politely asked if I could photograph them which made them both giggle and spent the next 20min crouching, composing and waiting. As they slowly forgot about me I captured the photo of the daughter. I found it striking that she would wear what appeared to be beautiful dress to a field. Since the background contained some palm trees in the upper third, I took it out to bring the focus to her and also to bring the whole photograph closer to what I had in mind.

This amazing place is situated near Page, Arizona in the US and has been formed by the Colorado river sneaking through the sandstone for millions of year. It’s a beautiful spot but for someone with fear of heights like me, it was a challenge to get to the edge and to capture the 4 images needed for this shot. I believe there are hundreds of photographs capturing this spot in a more magnificent way, but this was my only chance as we were flying through 5000 miles of national parks in 3 weeks time.

Walking the streets of Stone Town, Zanzibar, we came across a group of about 10 kids of all ages playing in the street. My wife pointed out that they might be a fun object to photograph, so we I pointed the lens at them and they went nuts. As soon as they heard the shutter click, they ran towards me and wanted to see the photo. It was difficult to explain to them that in order to see a photo of themselves they have to let me take it first. Since I am 183cm tall, I raised the camera to my eyes and pointed it downwards towards the kids to escape their hands. While all of them were screaming and giggling this one boy was standing still right right below me and staring into the lens. It wasn’t until we flew home and I converted the image into black and white that his eyes popped out of the frame.

Captured again on the side streets of Stone Town, Zanzibar. These three girls were so into the game and discussion that appeared to be part of it, that they didn’t even notice when I approached, went down on my knees and elbows and snapped a few photos. It is a crop from a larger photograph but I wanted the focus remain on them rather the old wooden frame and the decaying walls.

During a train ride from Lao Cai to Hanoi, Vietnam, this local tribe mother showed endless care and love to her baby boy. She was taking him to a hospital, where doctors were to help her with his deformities on both hands and feet. We were amazed with my wife how tender she behaved towards him, how she soothed him not only so we could sleep but also so that he gets some rest. I asked her in the universal “sign” language if I could photograph her and this capture is one of the few I managed to get in the dark interior of the train. The photograph is as captured, no post processing.