My name is Pavel, and I’ve been living in Prague, Czechia for 30 years, although I’m originally from Johannesburg, South Africa, where I lived until 1990. I’ve been photographing for about 30 years. I studied visual arts and photography at Johannesburg Art, Ballet, Drama and Music School (now the National School of Arts), and then photography at the Performing Arts Academy in Prague (FAMU), specializing in social documentary.
My main areas of interest in photography include documentary, portraiture and macro, and my preferred medium remains black and white, although I opt for colour when working with macro subjects. I particularly like the way in which one can evoke different moods with black and white, using existing light as much as possible, and when I do resort to using flash, it’s mostly to fill in shadows somewhat when the contrast range of a scene is very high. Although I now work exclusively in digital, one could say I’m something of a traditionalist in my approach – I use zone system exposure principles and don’t like to post-process photographs further than what I remember from the film days (dodging, burning in, tone/colour balance). I try as far as possible to edit whilst photographing and hope that the images I shoot speak for themselves in terms of composition and content. My website contains images from the genres in which I specialize, both colour and black and white. I hope you like the imagery.
To visit Pavel’s website please click here – www.pavelsuba.cz
