Welcome to my photography website! My name is Martin Vorel and I am a photographer from Prague, Czech Republic, born in 1983. Photography has been my passion since childhood. I remember exploring the world with my analog cameras, capturing memories and experiences in still images. It was only in 2013 that I started to take photography more seriously.
In 2013 I started Libreshot.com where I share some of my photos for free under a CC0 license. I enjoy sharing my work with others and seeing it used for various projects, including websites, books, and other creative endeavors. Over time, my passion for photography grew and I began to focus more on artistic photography.
I mostly take minimalist photos of plants, nature, architecture, landscapes, or abstract photography. My style is clean, precise, and straightforward and I aim to capture the subject’s essence. I love using the technique of camera movement during exposure in my abstract photography. This allows me to capture unique, stunning images full of movement and energy.
My role models in photography are Michael Kenna, Karl Blossfeldt, and Edward Weston. Their work has inspired me to explore my creativity and develop my unique style of photography.
I use Nikon and Tamron photographic equipment which allows me to capture stunning images with excellent clarity and detail. I sell my photographs as open editions and you can order limited editions of signed prints. Please feel free to contact me by email to discuss specific terms.
Thank you for visiting my website and for your interest in my work. I hope you enjoy exploring my photographs as much as I have enjoyed capturing them.
Artist Statement
We live in a world that urges us to become more and more involved in things. Things we don’t even need. Things that don’t make us happy. This is one of the reasons why I take minimalist photographs. I try to make my photographs look calm and simple and to show the viewer the very essence of things around us.
The second and more complicated thing I try to do (and I haven’t achieved it yet) is to find universal beauty. Such beauty, which can be appreciated not only by every human being but also by a hypothetical being from another planet. In short, a being without any experience of our earthly life.
This effort stems from my childhood. It has always seemed strange to me how people attribute importance to different traditional customs. It bothered me how everyone deals with weddings, how they are in love, and yet over half of the marriages end in divorce. I hated watching adults drink alcohol at every celebration, even though everyone knows how many people alcohol has ruined their lives. Likewise, I was not comfortable participating in customs such as caroling for Easter, etc.
Today, I know that this human behavior is in many cases justified and important. Yet some of it remained in me.
When I see successful photographs featuring a beautiful woman, I wonder if the same photo would have had such success with those hypothetical extraterrestrial beings who don’t even know what a woman is? Would such a photo still be beautiful? However, this effect is not only caused by beautiful women. Virtually any object of photography evokes emotions based on our relationship to this object. Therefore, my goal is to take a photo that will be beautiful even if there is no object that evokes emotions. I would like emotions to evoke photography itself.
I do not know whether this goal is achievable at all. Still, I’ll keep trying.
Edit 7/2021:
Now I have a new photographic goal :). I want to try to create a photograph that will evoke a “moment of enlightenment” – satori. Something like a photographic haiku. What is it and what should it look like? I don’t really know yet. And I’ll probably never find out. But why not try?
What is Minimalist Photography?
Minimalism as an artistic genre of visual arts originated in the early 1960s in New York. The rise of minimalism is associated with artists such as Robert Ryman, Al Held, Ellsworth Kelly, Frank Stella, and Kenneth Noland. Even in the field of photography, there are many great minimalist photographers who are engaged in a variety of genres. For example, Michael Kenna and his minimalist landscapes, Hans Hiltermann with his minimalist portraits, or Mark Meyer and his photographs taken through the same window of his bedroom.
On Wikipedia, you can find this definition of minimalism: “(minimalism in visual arts) expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts”.
That says it all.
Thank you very much for visiting my website.