Crosses on Old Town Square
“Million Moments drew thousands of crosses on Old Town Square on 22 March in order to draw attention to the almost 25000 victims of Covid-19. I thought I’d just take a couple of traditional photos for the paper and that would be it, but it wasn’t to be. During the day I returned to the site because I had thought the crosses would be removed in the afternoon. But that didn’t happen. People who had lost a loved one began laying flowers and lighting candles on specific crosses, or writing names and messages next to them. A one-off event became a place of remembrance, becoming more powerful every day. So I was also there almost every day until early April in order to try to capture that unique atmosphere. Some moments were very difficult to take photos of. It reminded me of taking photos in hospitals, especially where the family come to say goodbye to a dying family member. People came to the Old Town Square to remember their loved ones, but it was full of emotions, and the line between whether to take a photo or not was very thin,” says the author.
U2 fan and rock-climber who neither took photos nor wanted to be a photographer in childhood. At secondary school in Rumburk he wanted to teach geography. But after studying at Charles University’s Faculty of Science, he met his future colleagues following a U2 concert, and so his professional career in the media began. He has worked for the iDNES.cz and MF DNES newsroom, and has currently been working for a number of years for the publishers, Economia. He collaborates with the Creative Mornings project and Člověk v tísni charity, for whom he takes photos of the Jeden Svět (One World) film festival. He is an active twitter and instagram user. He won 2019’s Photograph of the Year award in the Czech Press Photo contest.