Václav Kopecký

• When you developed a film badly before the existence of photoshop,00:00:08.056
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• you had to restore it, go one step backward.00:00:19.249
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• There are different types of developers00:00:24.549
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• and a corrective whitening bath. That's really good.00:00:31.503
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• This is the last photolab I know and I'm sure there's nothing of this sort...00:00:50.438
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• Mr FotoOto would develop photos directly from negatives here and00:01:00.971
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• he avoided digital processing. He finished this year's summer.00:01:07.798
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• I got here by accident, they asked me if I wanted to take the shop over.00:01:16.546
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• I came here to realize the principle of such shop type.00:01:22.614
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• I wanted to prove myself it wasn't possible to run it this way.00:01:30.043
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• Analogue photo is principal because of the material.00:01:44.309
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• Recently I've been thinking why I do it this way,00:01:48.993
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• especially in the context of the technology which00:01:52.474
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• is dying out slowly or at least the range00:01:55.845
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• available on the market is decreasing...00:02:00.103
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• I am quite reliant on companies producing the chemicals and paper.00:02:03.060
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• I wondered whether I would get along00:02:09.725
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• with digital version and work with digital photos.00:02:12.092
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• I came to the conclusion it would all break down.00:02:19.006
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• I wouldn't be able to do without a darkroom.00:02:25.088
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• Or without the material itself.00:02:30.606
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• I can't replace this stage with a computer programme00:02:32.808
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• and a device that would print it...00:02:39.430
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• I can't imagine adding the aura which is a result of me being a part of the process...00:02:46.890
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• The clock works... It just looks it doesn't...00:03:05.602
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• The sweep-second hand is important.00:03:09.337
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• And when you start working in the dark,00:03:11.764
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• the time works in a different way...00:03:14.930
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• Even if the clock kept good time, it would only make you stressed,00:03:20.061
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• but it couldn't be helped...00:03:25.929
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• A photographer looks into the objective,00:03:34.219
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• he picks a composition, squeezes the release and00:03:36.615
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• creates a picture he can later materialize by developing00:03:39.866
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• on a photographic paper. His priority is the picture.00:03:47.375
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• Whereas my priority is developing the photo.00:03:51.980
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• When I look into the viewfinder, I do not compose because00:03:56.911
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• I compose during the stage of working with the material.00:04:06.037
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• In essence, I take the photographic paper and expose it somehow.00:04:13.221
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• I really enjoy my work. When I process somebody's order,00:04:25.752
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• the photo doesn't emerge until I expose it.00:04:32.568
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• Even when somebody wants me to blow up his photos from negatives00:04:40.489
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• I appropriate the photos for the moment before I return them.00:04:44.446
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• I consider them my own. And I don't even mind when00:04:49.732
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• someone brings me a negative I didn't shoot.00:04:53.765
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• What pictures do you have here at the moment?00:04:56.609
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• I can't show you.00:04:59.880
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• Why?00:05:02.456
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• Because not everything can be appropriated.00:05:08.519
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• When I'm blowing up photos, I often think about my work,00:05:17.535
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• it's much closer to free work.00:05:21.038
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• If I worked with clay, there are two ways of the process.00:05:41.796
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• I could model something with the help of a mould or by hand.00:05:48.644
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• When I work by hand I try to create something from material00:05:54.497
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• so that it makes sense and emerges without any outer context.00:06:02.482
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• I aimed for that in the coloured flags.00:06:09.792
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• In principle it's just a bent paper lit by00:06:15.062
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• a coloured light, it's a coloured paper...00:06:18.656
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• Important is that it isn't any ordinary object00:06:48.096
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• that would be just an object, there is also the photographic aspect,00:06:51.844
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• the gradation of disappearing light00:06:56.682
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• as it's lit just partly and not from the side.00:07:02.682
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• One part is in a negative shadow,00:07:08.799
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• so it was created just by the paper and shape.00:07:12.827
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• I called my recent exhibition act "The Backward Wave",00:07:30.039
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• it's an extensive series of river waves under a weir.00:07:36.244
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• Its formal appearance should remind of a wave,00:07:54.143
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• the end of the paper twists back and it should all signify work00:08:01.589
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• looking back but at the same time rolling up and going on.00:08:08.300
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• It doesn't stop or go back, there is this motion.00:08:16.257
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• It's interesting to observe a backward wave under a weir for example,00:08:22.364
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• similarly like looking into fire, it never stops, it keeps flowing and moving.00:08:35.268
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• And its present, its "now" keeps changing and shifting all the time00:08:40.590
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• and the only possibility how to follow up are sketches.00:08:45.193
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• I guess the sketches should chronologically precede the work.00:08:49.771
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• However I find more interesting to work on the sketches00:08:59.294
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• already with the topic awareness and experience.00:09:02.603

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