Photographers Blog

By David W Cerny

Right in the middle of the summer season in Czech Republic, divers show off their guts in a cliff-diving competition at the flooded quarry near the central Bohemian village of Hrimezdice.

This event has a 13 year history and is getting bigger every year. It was just a few courageous jumpers in the beginning, but now its a very popular cliff diving and music festival with thousands of visitors and more then 60 jumpers.

Anyone who is not afraid to jump into the water from 12, 16 or even 20 meters high can apply to this crazy competition, which includes all freestyle dives. The divers have the possibility to create as large a splash as possible and perform loops, somersaults, twists or just freaky movements right before the splashdown.

It is an extreme sport that can give you serious head injury, broken ribs, cuts and bruises, to say the least. However with a little bit of training you could experience the thrill of your life, they say!

Despite the fact that it is a dangerous sport and more then 40 amateur jumpers took part in the competition, no one got hurt. And for example, the youngest jumper was just 7 years old and the oldest one was 65.

By Petr Josek

Yeah, yeah, yeah 4-1 loss for the Czechs against Russia in Wroclaw. The Russian fans left the city for Warsaw after that and ended up fighting Polish supporters. Wroclaw is calm and quiet. Here the fans like each other and the city center is calm and full of friendly faces. The spotlight moves on, but there is still work to be done.

After the next round the Czechs became a decisive opponent for Poland in advancing from Group A. Its a championship and the teams need to keep sharp, away from the headlines, and for photographers there are images to be made that tell the story. Eyes on the prize.

As in previous EURO competitions I’ve been assigned to cover the team, and shooting training is a hell of a lot of work, even when everyone else is looking elsewhere. Let’s see what they look like even when there is “No Coverage” in the picture planner.

By Petr Josek

Mountains, snow, wind, cold, sun, dogs, sleds and mushers. Those are elements you meet in various combinations when you go to cover the Sedivackuv long dog sled race in the Czech Republic’s Orlicke mountains. It’s a beautiful place. I’ve been covering the race since 2005 and I always look forward it. You need to get well dressed for that, we call it double-full-full. I remember temperatures of -20 degrees Celsius (-4 degrees Fahrenheit) with strong winds.

There is always the obvious problem of how to cover the same event differently every year, especially as we don’t have giant mountains with high summits and there’s not always bright sun. But I think that nice pictures showing the event and describing its atmosphere can’t hurt once a year.

You go to the start line and take some pictures of excited dogs. They already know what’s going on, what is ahead of them. They bark as they rush up the hill and disappear in the horizon to face the next stage which over four days counts more than 240 kilometers (149 miles).