Dalibor Bednář: Paris, Paris …
The town on the River Seine has doubtlessly changed a lot since the times
when Henri Cartier-Bresson captured the every day situations of Parisian streets
through the viewfinder of his Leica. And yet, thousands of photographers have
been trying since Bresson’s times to eternize the pulsation of the city, to
find the “decisive moment“ as naturally as this guru of candid
photography.
Dalibor Bednář who was taken by his profession into the exact world of
technics and close calculations, does not deny that Henri Cartier-Bresson had
become his idol a long time before he could visit France and its capitol.
He was enchanted by Paris immediately and he keeps getting back there. The
photographs on display were taken during a few visits in the last 3 years.
Bresson-like way of perception of life is very close to this quiet and
inconspicuous observer, who can patiently wait for his moment to click the
camera. The result can be such an unrepeatable shot with a unique atmosphere
which captures an ordinary sparrow having a rest on an empty café table and
that drew attention of a lonely sitting man who might have come to the lonesome
garden café to have a rest after a tiring day or might have been waiting for
his partner…Each photo tells its short story of everyday life which can be
offered by all big cities but only Paris has the unique, unrepeatable charm,
multiplied by busy boulevards as well as quiet lanes with out-of-the-way little
shops of bouquinists in Latin quarter, characteristic taverns having their own
history, or street painters in Montmartre… No matter if a receptive
photographer is observing the life in streets of Paris sitting on a chair in a
street café, on a bench in Luxemburg gardens, or looking out of a modern art
gallery window.
Bresson once said that if a photographer wanted to find his or her “decisive
moment“, it was especially a question of concentration. “Before shooting you
think, you contemplate, you look, look, look, look. Then you shoot, and get
it…The difference between an average and good photo is a question of
millimetres…“ As well as Bresson, Dalibor Bednář uses full frame of films
to tell his own stories by his photos from Paris. Bednář’ photographs are
virtually the result of concentrated observation of everyday life, with a
strange, unintentional easiness as if the author gave a free range to things
(and stories), and let them go their own way. As if he offered room for thinking
to those, whom he shows his pictures as unbiased observers whose minds then
develop other stories of everyday life.
Bednář’s interest in photography is not a randomly chosen hobby. He got in
touch with it in his childhood, while watching his father – an amateur
photographer – develop, enlarge, and sort photographs at home, not only for
“the family album”. When his father died, he inherited his photographic
equipment, which brought him to his own creative activity that turned into en
earnest artistic interest that sometimes had to recede into the background due
to work and mainly family needs. Since the end of the nineties Dalibor Bednář
finds his way back to his biggest hobby with a new intensity which is very close
to a professional obsession. In the centre of his attention there are still
photos of people as well as landscape photos. Now when he can use top quality
technical equipment (not meaning digital cameras, computer processing, scanners,
labs, and other achievements of modern technologies but working in principal
traditionally, developing his photos step by step from black-and-white negatives
in the darkroom), he works wit a different perspective and aims. He takes photos
of landscape, towns, portraits, and nudes. For him towns are symbols of
symbiosis between nature and people. In various nooks and corners he can see
former or only anticipated presence of people and their relationships. He
presents his photos in exhibitions and publishes his own individual calendars.
Two years ago he opened together with his old friend an exhibition gallery G7 in
Chelčického Street in Ostrava.
“When you feel good, you can do what you like,“ confesses Dalibor Bednář,
who is going to celebrate his 45th birthday this year. He is preparing three
individual photo exhibitions, and adds: “I am a little bit shy to take photos
of people right in the street. Therefore all my pictures are taken from a
distance. On the other hand, I am attracted to making portraits but it is
another aspect of my work which is not included in this collection.”
Special thanks go to Klárka Řezníčková who enlarged and prepared all the
photographs for the exhibition.
Bohdana Rywiková
Ostrava, March 2005
