Preview: 2011 Czech Press Photo

Photography's power to capture the public imagination has been well-documented. A single photograph from a war-torn land can be a more powerful shock to the senses than hundreds of news reports put together. But for Czech photographer Stanislav Krupař, winner of the 2011 Czech Press Photo Award, words and photos must work in concert to have the greatest effect.

"I am a storyteller. I show the way I perceive things, but reality is wide open. I can also conceive of the reportage being completely different. It would only take a different caption to change the entire photo. That is why every caption is so important: It can even reverse the significance of the story," Krupař tells The Prague Post.

Krupař's winning photo portrays racial tensions in Šluknov, north Bohemia, between Czech and Roma residents, which culminated in violent demonstrations in September. Daniela Mrázková, director of Czech Press Photo, says this photo was chosen as winner in part because such racial tensions "are a constant problem here and elsewhere."

Krupař says photography has always been an expression of his "civic attitude," and he is happy to be awarded for this photograph, which he took Sept. 10, when "the worst kind of locals became the most aggressive."

"I have been focused on ultra-right-wing groups for years. I have been observing the events in Šluknov for a while, and I have witnessed the frustrated locals getting closer to these Nazi groups of fighters. The same happened on Sept. 10; it was interesting that the biggest loudmouths are those who first throw the stones. It helped me understand events of 1938 or 1945 in the Sudetenland. What I saw here was not far from lynching - if the police hadn't been there. And we can speculate about what share Roma have in all of this," he says.

Krupař's is one of about 4,000 photographs submitted this year for the Czech Press Photo competition, a group that has been narrowed down to the 500 photos that are currently on display at Old Town Hall on Old Town Square. The exhibition veers between harrowing and beautiful, but the common denominator of all the photos on display is that they are powerful.

Mrázková says that while the contest categories remain the same from year to year, this year she sees a significant difference in quality of the entries over those from last year.

"The quality of journalistic photography is getting better. I think photographers are quite good not only in news but also in aesthetics of the pictures. Secondly, the majority of pictures are part of a series; there are very few single pictures. Practically, we exposed series of pictures," she says.

Because all of the photos are taken by photojournalists, the exhibition is a reminder of some of the biggest - and in many cases, most tragic - news stories of the past 12 months, from the shooting in Norway to the uprisings in the Middle East and the earthquake in Japan.

"Every year it is very difficult to choose the winner, although some years it's easier than others. Every year, including this year, the international jury quarrels over who will be the winner, but it is always a very interesting process, and in the end we have a remarkable result," Mrázková says.

Each of the photos on display is truly remarkable, for the clarity with which they reflect decisive moments in world history and for the unflinching eye they cast upon the most difficult of public events.  

- Klára Jiřičná contributed to this report.

Stephan Delbos can be reached at
sdelbos@praguepost.com