Paris in Panorama
Jaroslav Poncar was born in Prague in 1945. He now lives in Cologne, Germany, where he was professor at the department for Imaging Sciences at Cologne University of Applied Science (Fachhochschule Köln) from 1973 to 2003. Presently he is working at the Institute of Applied Optics and Electronics of the same university.
His countless, photographically motivated travels have usually taken him to the Himalayas, Tibet, India, Burma, Yemen and Cambodia. In Europe, during the short leaves he can take from his teaching, it mostly is France where he pursues panoramic projects. Inspired by the great Czech photographer Josef Sudek, who created in the early 1950s a panoramic portrait of Prague, Jaroslav Poncar started to work on a portrait of Paris in1977. The exhibition at Serindia Gallery is the first presentation of his Paris panoramas outside of Europe, and the prints are available in limited edition of 3 and 5 only at Serindia Gallery.
“As an homage to Czech photographer Josef Sudek, whose 1950s photographic book on the city of Prague inspired me, I selected Paris as my first panorama project because it’s a beautiful and photogenic city close to home. Pont Neuf (1977) is the beginning of my “panoramic” Paris project.”
“Panoramic photography is about to die out: the formats did not fit into magazines and, as books, bookstores hardly stock them because they don’t fit in shelves! Present camera-makers only make “panoramic” cameras with 28mm lens. The “zeppelin-effect” (curved horizontal line) is too strong and disturbing. The FT-2 is the only panoramic camera using 50mm lens, so I stick with it.”
Since 1970 his photographs were presented in numerous solo and group exhibitions. In July 2000 his Angkor photographs were presented to the Thai public in the National Gallery in Bangkok. His most recent publications are Burma: the Land that Time Forgot; Himalayas: Where Gods and Men Meet; Angkor: A Photographic Portrait; Himalayan Kingdoms; and Tibet.
All photographs in this exhibition were taken by an antique Russian panoramic camera FT-2 on either Ektachrome EPR 64 or black-and-white film Kodak Panatomic X. The b/w photographs in this exhibition are printed with archival pigment inks on Hahnemühle Baryta paper. Hahnemühle is a German art paper mill with a tradition going back to Albrecht Dürer times in the 16th century. This kind of photographic prints is called “giclée.” To the present day knowledge they last under normal keeping conditions as long as traditional b/w photographs. The color photographs are digitally printed on the traditional Kodak color positive paper (sometimes called “C-prints”). The exhibited photographs are limited editions made especially for Serindia Gallery. Email us for pricing details at serindiagallery@gmail.com.
