IVANA DOSTALOVA

PHOTOGRAPHER | ARTIST | COUNSELOR | FACILITATOR

THERAPEUTIC PHOTOGRAPHY | FREE EXPRESSION PHOTOTHERAPY METHOD

„I take photographs every day, I think about pictures every second of my life, I live in the pictorial stories of every moment. If there is one thing I need with the same intensity as breathing and heart beat, than it is to take photographs.“

ARTIST STATEMENT:

Czech photographer based in Prague, working, exhibiting and with the works represented in the collections worldwide. Founder of Voitopi Photography (2013), which focuses on documentary, artistic and commercial photography. Voitopi has been from 2024 dedicated as one unique project to women. All other projects continue to run under the name Ivana Dostalova. Ivana’s work includes both mostly black and white works in documentary series, women’s portraits, personal diaries and other projects, as well as reflecting on social and psychosocial issues and today’s world through various artistic languages with signs of symbolism and experimentation. Her work varies from fairy tales dreamy early works to psychological and therapeutic photography works deeply reflecting her inner journey of healing of childhood traumas, thus representing her personal PhotoTherapy. Ivana has a diverse portfolio of projects. Among the documentary ones, among the best known is the series in between documentary and diary „My Prague“ (2015-2021), in which she captures the atmosphere of Prague and important events, or a series of photographs in which she focused on documenting the backstage of the Oncogynecology Center of the General University Hospital in Prague (2017) via the inner journey of the patient, which later became the book „The Stories Behind Hospital Walls“ (2018). In addition to these topics, since 2014 she has been photographing the backstage of children’s dance and ballet in the time-lapse series „First Steps“ and „Ballet Life“. Other documentaries include personal stories of burlesque performers (Behind the Burlesque, since 2021), behind the scenes of Czech theatres and more. Among the ongoing personal diaries, the series „Maternal Exile“ (2015-2020), „Diary from Quarantine“ (2020), „Life Traveler“ (from 2015) and „American Escapes“ (2022) can be mentioned as a maternal road movie in search of love. In recent years she has also been working on psychosocial projects and portrait series empowering women (e.g. Swimming Women 2023), as well as projects exploring „the self“ and the therapeutic potential of photography, and is a graduate of the PGCert Therapeutic Photography at Robert Gordon University in Scotland. Her three main areas of photographic study and research are The self study, The other(s) study and The world of a (day)dreamer. This part of Ivana’s work reflects on the self and interaction with society and other(s), and the critical search for self, depth and authenticity in the age of instant instagram happiness. She uses a variety of self-portraits as part of her self-study. Two-time nominee and second place winner in the Czech Press Photo competition (2018, 2019), shortlisted in the Sony World Photography Awards in 2023. Recipient of an Honorable Mention in the IPA 2023 Deeper Perspective Award. Former full-time clinical scientist with a PhD in neurobiology and physiology.

EDUCATION:

Ph.D. Neurobiology, Physiology, Charles University

PGCert Therapeutic Photography, Robert Gordon University, Scotland

 

LIFE:

Clinical Scientist For 10 Years | Freelance Photographer For 10 Years | Artist For a Lifetime

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„My art-works which I can define as a Part III of My Work (The World of a (Day)Dreamer) are my seeing of myself-my the self in the confrontation with today´s society of consumption and „Instant Instagram happiness“ where I feel that there is no place for dreamers. So, I have to put on my artist´s trousers and to create my own world full of deep true love.“

(Extract from the interview for Fotonostrum in 2023, targeted mainly to my black and white works and portraits)

I think that in my work, women and femininity come up again and again, my photography often bears the signs of feminity. In my portraits, I try to work with depth and look for a visual representation of the soul, rather than focusing on the physical, it’s the energy radiated, mood, symbolic even a tiny details that is important to me during the photoshoot. Every photoshooting is unique, I am scientist, every photoshoot is an experiment that becomes a meditation, mutual relationship and a theatre at the same time. Each photoshoot results in a series of photographs which are unpredictable in some way, yet thought out in detail in advance, usually including both black and white portraits and art portraits. I try to give women enough safety, intimacy and closenest during the photoshoot to really be themselves and with themselves. Also processing of the various roles of women in today’s competitive and judgmental society, motherhood and women´s choices, a woman’s relationship with herself is typical underneath my work. My main goal during the photoshoot is naturalness and establishing a close relationship with the subject or community. Photography is like a close friendship, there must be trust, openness and heart. My photographic practice is characterized by proximity, sharing, telling personal stories in the case of portraits and certain other projects, or the role of the invisible sensitive visitor who is a natural part of the community in the case of documentary series and some specific projects, and the role of life observer and traveler through life, where I have at least a small camera with me at all times. I love photography and I can honestly say that I honestly like and love every person I´ve ever photographed.

I have been taking photos since I was a child, but the initial impulse for beginning of my photographic journey as a professional came from several traumatic life events that changed me deeply as a human being and also uncovered other traumas from my early childhood. Also some kind of a feeling of society crisis where I felt that I have to call for and bring more love in today society followed after these events and led me to left scientific journey for a while. Initially, photography was more of a way how to process the personal feelings, a kind of self-therapy, and it was during these first years that I began to create an extensive series of diaries with the subtitle „Silent Years“. The camera became my world, my possibility to speak, my eye, my hand, my companion on the journey. At the beginning I photographed instinctively, pictures started to come and come out and did not want to stop. Gradually, I began to deeply study photographic process and to do continuous visual research and also to seach via photography and photographic visual language for who I am. I also started to wandering through life and travel a lot with my camera in my hand, I started to be an enthusiast of catching of the moments from the world, the life just as I see it.

During the last ten years of my photographic practice, I have being developed the special approach towards the photographed person which I named VOFRE (Voitopi Free Expression PhotoTherapy Method). VOFRE is an approach of free expression of the photographed person containing elements of play, movement, meditation, bodywork, free expression, evoked imagination (by me) and conscious authenticity which is a part of the complete photographic process. The whole process is gently verbally directed by me: „Please, look at me like behind the camera would stand someone you love … please imagine this and that … please express … how you feel when“ … and then I give them enough time … In the free expression process, I hope that everyone is becoming free enough to be who they really are. The approach is non-evaluative, non-judgmental, supportive, and unconditionally accepting. I take photographs on very close and I consider the relationship between the photographer and the photographed person to be deeply personal. Sometimes people ask me how it is possible that in my photographs the women look as if we have known each other before photoshooting, how it is possible that they are so relaxed. It’s the way I work, it’s a form of me functioning as a person, where there is a kind of connection and a form of sharing between me and the person I’m photographing in the course of the photoshoot. There are no hides between me and the photographed one, no roles to play, I accept everyone unconditionally as they are. I also stay to be friends with many people I have been photographed. Typical for me are series of photographs for one person from one photoshoot for deeper photographic study of the subject.

This life and photographic approach enables me better to search for deeper perspective and deeper insight in each photograph, at the same time I always try to make my photographs deeply human. In portraits, I often process symbolically the „behind“, because behind each human face there is a human story. I am life observer who explores life via the lenses of scientist and dreamer in one:

„Cycle of life, run of the time, transience, infinity, path. Each of us is a part of it all. Each of us is ephemeral part of eternity. You, me, we all wander, we are life travellers in our thoughts, which blend together and form our reality set in places, which we love, live, consciously perceive, and of which ephemerally permanent picture we thus create. River of energy. Birds flight. Bubbles of children´s dreams. Window to the human soul. Everyday movement. Events and stories of our beating hearts. Reality blending with dream. Child´s world which sets us a mirror how we should be. Everyday life turns in a game full of fantasy, which drifts us like a river. Tiny, almost imperceptible details, which suddenly stand out clearly and like a light shine in our thoughts on our way. Suddenly we see the beauty and importance of little things. Suddenly we perceive ourselves as observers of life. Suddently everyday things become unusual. Suddenly life becomes a miracle.“ — my own accompanying text towards My Prague Series

In some of my projects I am closely connected with and know the enviroment and setting personally before I start photographic project there. The everyday life is thus the great inspiration for many of my projects – I have been working in a hospital, I am swimmer, my son is a ballet dancer … my natural photographic curiosity drives me to visually express my perception of the enviroment that I come into the contact with on a human level, and in context of the society – I am czech person who is intended to the czech tradition and culture.

Naturalistic style is typical for my portrait photographs. Photography for me is more about art of seeing and about the deepness of the soul and creativity of the photographer than about the type of the camera. I’ve been taking photographs since childhood, when my father taught me how to take pictures with analogue, however in my professional practice I have been primarily using digital cameras, initially Sony which I still have and use occasionally, and last years I use mainly Canon EOS 5D Mark IV and other equipment from Canon, my most favorite portrait lens is Canon EF 50 mm f/1,2 L USM. For the diaries and „still with me“ when I travel or during daily life I also use Leica. For the studio lighting I use Aputure, my favorite type of lighting is one light from upper, like the sun. Outside and on location I work with natural light which I always prefer if possible. Technically, I use Photoshop for post-production, but especially in the case of art photography. In the case of portraits, I never retoush the real thing, there is no affort for perfection. I love women faces as they are, I see an unique beauty in each of them. In this respect, I think my mainly portrait work is influenced by the work of Peter Lindberg. The much more important part of my post-production is to look and look and look and observe photographs, I usually do deep photographic analysis. In art photography, I use my own layering from my own photographic material. In contrast to my other projects, photographic process in my art works differs in the way that in art photography I usually create an idea after the photoshoot during the process of postproduction when I deeply study the photographed material, it is a kind of an later phase experiment. In the case of other photography (e.g., women portraits) I always come to photoshoot with concrete idea(s), I for example sometimes use a personal thing from the life of the photographed person, but the whole photoshoot is an open process, new ideas come even during the photoshoot. I can´t say if I prefer studio photoshooting or on location photography, I love that variability, that change, in the studio you are allowed to work differently than on the location, both are experimental, whether you are seaching for the right moment or light, or whether you can more psychologically deeply work with the photographed person in the safe space. I love to meet different people and environments, there is something amazing in every one click of the shutter, in every human encounter, in life as it flows like a river.

This year I dedicated a lot of time to my last project Swimming Women. This project is my first project in which I combine the variety of classical black and white and coloured portraits together to create deeper psychological study of each of the woman: „Swimming Women project establishes water and swimming as a type of refuge and an intelligent biological system in a competitive and evaluative society; as a „mother“ with a fluid and continuously open embrace of unconditional acceptance for every woman, which at the same time gives the depth of each woman’s mind and soul an individual space. 30 women, 30 personal stories and relationships to water and swimming. How do you feel when you swim? How does it feel to be in contact with the water? Kristyna-freedom, Arina-Quiet, Klara-Challenge, Helena-Liberation, Anna-Peace, Vera-Emotion … A section of personal stories written by hand intertwines with the feelings of each woman underwater, bringing a deeper photographic perspective and processing of each woman’s feelings to the project, with a series of diverse portraits piecing together a deeper psychological photographic study of each woman as a mosaic. The environment of the pool, where any roles or status in life are washed away and swimsuits and bathing caps are the uniform under which it doesn’t matter who we are in life, in the water we are all equal. Biomedical engineer, manager, medical student, maternity mom, architect, nurse, … in the water we are all women. Project appeals to women’s mental health care and empowerment and also confronts body shaming as a highly topical issue in today’s society.“ Swimming Women Project was awarded Honorable Mention in IPA 2023 Deeper Perspective Award.

And what would I like to achieve with my photographs?

I would like my photographs to bring moments of contemplation, beauty, and deepness, to the viewer, to the world as it is. I would like to make the movement of life in my photographs to bring peace of mind and desire to explore, to see life and to ask questions about existence of human beings. I would like my photographs to bring love and acceptance. I would like my photographs to be personal, to have a soul. I would like my photographs to bring genuineness. I am life traveler who tries to catch and express via photography impermanence and beauty of human beings and existence – and I try to do it with heart, as a human.