Josef Koudelka: Diaries

A rare glimpse into the mind and artistic process of one of the world’s greatest photographers.

Distilled from sixty‑nine journals kept over the course of fifty‑plus years, Josef Koudelka: Diaries offers a look inside the mind and artistic process of the iconoclastic Czech photographer renowned for a life in exile and legendary projects on the Roma, the 1968 Soviet-led invasion in Prague, and the devastating impact humans have on the landscape. Facsimile pages from the diaries, along with images by the photographer, including self‑portraits, lend the volume an immediacy and authenticity. As curator Tomáš Pospěch writes, “Koudelka’s diaries are a ‘cookbook’ of classic photography. He associated with the most renowned photographers. His notes sum up his rich experience, including with the now‑vanishing technology of analog black‑and‑white photography. His remarks, quips, and stories reappear, just as he repeatedly made resolutions, affirmed the rules he had adopted, and recalled earlier events and dreams.” Diaries is a perfect companion to Josef Koudelka: Next (2023), the visual biography by Melissa Harris.