During a photo shoot for a newspaper or a website, a person gets to all kinds of places, sometimes even unexpected ones. “This year, my work brought me to an erotic museum, to the cabin of a plane with a pilot who had previously managed to land on the roof of a skyscraper, to an Irish whiskey distillery and to a krav maga martial arts gym,” says photographer and journalist Tomáš Vocelka. His author’s selection of photos of the year brings the third part of the Photos of the Year series.
(3rd part of the series) – Tomáš Vocelka takes photos mainly for the lifestyle sections of the news website Aktuálně.cz. At the same time, he also works as a journalist on topics related to photography.
“At the beginning of this year’s photo gallery, I decided to include photos from my free work, which are not related to work. They are from London, where I have been going for many years, and I am currently trying to prepare a set of them for the exhibition,” says Vocelka. He also included in the selection pictures of architecture, portraits and shots from some reports.
“After many years spent in news as a photographer, writing journalist and then editor, I enjoy magazine themes. They show life and people on the bright side and that makes me happy, because in news you usually meet the exact opposite,” he explains .
The Photos of the Year series has an unconventional form this year
The “Top Photo” series has been on the Aktuálně.cz website for several years. This year it comes under the new title Photos of the Year. And while in previous years he usually started with the best news photos created for Aktuálně.cz, Hospodářské noviny, the Ekonom weekly and other projects of the Economia publishing house, this year it is different.
Due to the tragic events at Charles University, which took place just before Christmas, we have decided that during the Christmas holidays we will honor their peaceful atmosphere and not introduce images of suffering and negative events into it in the annual photo galleries.
That’s why the series started with photo galleries focused more on lighter magazine and lifestyle topics. We will bring news galleries reflecting important events in the last days of this year and in the first days of the next.
The goal of the Photos of the Year series is not only to commemorate interesting events, but also to appreciate the work of photographers and to show how excellent images they create in one year. Photographers have a completely free hand when choosing them, it is their author’s choice.
About the author of the images:
Tomáš Vocelka (*1965) began his journalistic career at the beginning of the nineties in the news weekly Region, operating in the north of Moravia and Silesia. Since 2000, he worked in the central editorial office of MF DNES and spent many years in the position of chief editor. Since 2016, he has been working in the magazine section of Aktuálně.cz. He is the winner of the Prague Grant at Czech Press Photo 2019 and the winner of the important world photography competition Sony World Photography Awards in the professional category Architecture (2021). You can follow his work here: Web: www.tomasvocelka.cz
Instagram: @tomvocelka
Facebook: facebook.com/tomas.vocelka
You can find all the parts of the Photos of the Year series published so far at: magazin.aktualne.cz/foto
