Martin Štrba (Slovakia)

In keeping with the aesthetic of his fellow-students of photography, the relatively little-known staged photographs by the cameraman-photographer Martin Štrba employ visual metaphor and sophisticated pictorial symbols of the human body. His natural attitude to the reality around him, which stems from the subject matter he is exploring, led him also to take photographs outside, in which he accentuated the physical and symbolic points of intersection of man and nature. He stopped taking photographs in 1991, however, and except for several exhibitions in later years, his works have not yet been shown as a whole or published in book form. Štrba has continued to work as a cameraman, most often with the directors Martin Šulík, Vladimír Michálek, and Agnieszka Holland. In 1999 and 2000, he was awarded the Czech Lion, the prize of the Czech Film and Television Academy. He lives and works in Prague.