Josef Šnobl – Praga Obscura

9. 5. 2023

Josef Šnobl (1954-2021) managed to lay out the book and the publication was then completed by friends, especially editor Antje Görnig. The photographer with a university degree worked in Cologne and collected material for the publication Noční jízda (Night Ride) for a quarter of a century. The memoirs of a taxi driver have had such a strong reception that they have been published repeatedly. Obskurní Praha (Obscure Prague) is also based on darkened illuminations. Although it doesn't overlook everyday occurrences, sceneries from travel guidebooks are not to be found here: the shifted exposition flukes are echoes of the moodiness of pinhole chambers, as the ambiguous title suggests. Among the paranormal visions, graphic artist Jiří Hampl has set typescripts of the author's memories of his hometown; the treatment is reminiscent of the reproductive quality of intaglio printing.

 

Josef Šnobl. Praga Obscura. Erinnerungen an eine graue Stadt 1970–1979 / 1990–2005. (Praga Obscura. Memories of a Gray City 1970–1979 / 1990–2005) Köln: Emons Verlag, 2022. ISBN 978-3-7408-1662-9.

Josef Moucha

(1956) is a photographer and teacher at the Institute of Creative Photography of Silesian University in Opava. He has published essays Zážitek arény (The Experience of the Arena, 2004), a novella, Mimochodem (By the Way, 2004), essays Obrazy z dějin fotografie české (Images from the History of Czech Photography, 2011) and two picture books, Válka za studena / Fotografie ze základní vojenské služby v Československé lidové armádě (Serving It Cold: Photographs from Basic Training in the Czechoslovak People’s Army, 2017) and Doličné okamžiky (Incriminating Moments, 2018).