Josef Koudelka (born 10 January 1938) is a Czech–French photographer.
Sometimes I photograph without looking through the viewfinder. I have mastered that well enough, it is almost as if I were looking through it.
I would like to see everything, look at everything, I want to be the view itself.
When I first started to take photographs in Czechoslovakia, I met this old gentleman, this old photographer, who told me a few practical things. One of the things he said was, "Josef, a photographer works on the subject, but the subject works on the photographer. "
What matters most to me is to take photographs; to continue taking them and not to repeat myself. To go further, to go as far as I can.
The biggest lesson in photography is that from negative we make a positive
I don't pretend to be an intellectual or a philosopher. I just look.
It never seemed important to me that my photos be published. It's important that I take them. There were periods where I didn't have money, and I would imagine that someone would come to me and say: 'Here is money, you can go do your photography, but you must not show it. ' I would have accepted right away. On the other hand, if someone had come to me saying: 'Here is money to do your photography, but after your death it must be destroyed,' I would have refused.
My work has no theme. I don't care if my photographs get published, and I have no interest in the news. But the invasion of Prague was not news, it was my life.
I never stay in one country more than three months. Why? Because I was interested in seeing, and if I stay longer I become blind.
The maximum, that is what has always interested me.
I don't like captions. I prefer people to look at my pictures and invent their own stories.
For me what photographers say about their photos doesn't have any importance. For me it is just enough to look at the pictures. Many times - for the boring pictures - people have to say so many things about them to show you there is something to them when many times there is nothing.
I have to shoot three cassettes of film a day, even when not 'photographing', in order to keep the eye in practice.