Karel Cudlín

Borrowing his father's Exakta and supported by his uncle, a photography enthusiast, Cudlín soon started photographing the Romani people of Žižkov, the suburb where he lived.

Cudlín attended a social work school that, combined with a short stint in a low-grade job, provided him with the proletarian credentials needed to join the Fotografia cooperative.

The cooperative sent him to a ballroom in the Lucerna area where he overcame considerable technical difficulties in photographing young people at night.

[2][3] Following the Velvet Revolution and subsequent democratization of Czechoslovakia, he embarked on a series of relationships with other Czechoslovakian media sources, among them the newspapers Prostor and Lidové noviny and the ČTA agency.

He has continued with a small number of long-term projects (Ukrainian workers in Prague, hypermarkets), photographed in black and white.