Fotograf Magazine

The subject of intimacy is both tempting and at the same time dangerously popular, not to say populist. Apart from corporeal or erotic intimacy, however, there is intimacy regarding personal space and the objects and stories within this space, which has been the focus of photography from its earliest days. The visual record of this intimacy neither seeks attention nor wishes to provoke, instead it seems to represent the photographer’s quest to find balance in relation to the outside world, a quest for inner harmony. It seems appropriate that Josef Sudek, who is foremost among the classics of Czech photography to prefigure this notion of intimacy, was once dubbed by the Czech poet Jaroslav Seifert as “the great harmonizer”.