You just can’t think up an idea, it must come out of the blue.

An interview with a professional photographer Dan Vojtěch, made by René Tomaides

Dan Vojtěch is known worldwide as a pioneer of unusual photography projects in commercial and
sports photography, where he tries to come up with new ideas and move the action photography
boundaries.

He graduated from Tomáš Baťa University in Zlín with a degree in commercial photography, so he
could focus only on photography during his studies.

Dan mainly shoots advertising campaigns for T-Mobile, Birell, Radegast, Ragwear brands.
Cooperation with the Red Bull company is a whole another chapter. He started the cooperation with
the Czech department of Red Bull in 2009 and then he became an official Red Bull Content Pool
photographer. He started receiving offers right from the Red Bull Media House headquarters in
Austria and from other Red Bull departments in Slovakia, Germany, Netherlands, Ukraine,
Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Egypt and Tunisia. He has a long term cooperation with Nikon and
FOMEI companies, he tests their new products and became their Ambassador in The Czech
Republic.


This year has been really busy for you in terms of photograpy, how would you describe it?
We have started this year with a really interesting project for the Red Bull company called
“Planets”. Jim Dohnal, a professional Czech parkourist, was caught in a series of photos from
several different worlds. We were shooting at interesting and for sports photography unusual
locations, such as Kamenický Šenov, The Výpustek Cave or The Demenovská Cave in Slovakia. I
also started a successful cooperation with 4D Photo agency, which represents me in commercial
offers.


What commercial offers do you mean?
This year, we photographed a pretty interesting campaign for the Radegast brewery, which was a
combination of studio photography, 3D graphics and met painting. The campaign for T-Mobile was
interesting as well, when I photographed a famous soccer player Peter Čech from a point of view of
his teammate.


How was the cooperation with Peter Čech like?
Petr is a real professional so it didn’t take long and I think it came out really well.

Where do you actually take inspiration for your photography ideas from?
You just can’t think up an idea, it must come out of the blue and I don’t know how to describe it.
Most ideas come in a normal life when I see something interesting and I try to use it for example in
sports photography.


You worked with many sportsmen on your projects. Could describe your recent photography
projects?
The 2 newest projects were done with the Czech champion in aerobatics Martin Šonka and the
world champion in 1,000-meter sprint canoeing under 23 years Martin Fuksa. With Martin Šonka
we tried to follow up with the series of photos with Tomáš Slavík and Vavřinec Hradílek, where we
showed a little bit of the backstage.

The photoshoot with Martin Šonka took place at the airport in Moravská Třebová, where he was
flying between flash heads that were mounted on a forklift platform. There was a 14-meter gap
between the flash heads, he flew fewer than 2 meters above the ground and nearly touched the
concrete with the wing. We used 30 FOMEI S600DC battery flash heads with total power of nearly
13,800Ws.

We went to the least light polluted place in The Czech Republic with Martin Fuksa and tried to
combine canoeing with night sky photography. We where shooting on a lake in Miřetínsko near
Karlovy Vary. The interesting thing about this photoshoot was that it was necessary to capture fast
action together with stars in the night sky in one photo. We used a special astrophotography camera
Nikon D810 A. We also filmed a time lapse video of the night sky during the photoshoot.


How about you and photography exhibitions?
I don’t exhibit my photos that often, but this year has been bit different. You could see my photos
for example at Fotoškoda, Beseda Gallery in Otrokovice or in Varna, Bulgaria. I’m planning an
exhibition in September and it’s not going to be sports photography but nature in motion.

What are your plans for next months?
We are preparing several cool projects for the next months, I can’t tell you more yet though but you
will be surprised.


How do you relax?
It’s pretty hard to be a professional photographer because of the proper time management. I try to
have a strict daily routine which means I have hours for photographing and studio work. I don’t
even have a computer at home and I like spending time with my family and I travel a lot, that’s how
I relax.

What would you say to beginner photographers if they wanted an advice from you how to
begin?
Photograph as much as possible and be critical.


Could you describe your photography equipment?
I shoot with Nikon cameras, my favorite is Nikon D810 and I use Nikorr 16/2.8 Fish Eye,
24-70/2.8, 70-200/2.8 VR2 lens most often. My photo studio is equipped with FOMEI studio flash
heads.

3 tips for better photos:
- try to learn taking photos with the manual mode. You realise soon it’s not difficult and you will
understand the main photography principals.
- always use the RAW format, it’s then easier to edit photos and eventually fine tune the exposure,
white balance and other parameters.
- don’t be afraid to experiment and to use an external flash, you can achieve very creative results.

René TomaidesProduct manager – Lighting Equipment

Rene directs the development of our studio lighting system product lines. He is also head of an SLS department in our company. His duty is to take care of the main customers and partners worldwide. He is a founder of FOMEI Ambassador and Photographers projects.