CGD23

“Consistently fresh photographic magic”

Even in 2023, the photographic duo SHOTBY.US continues its winning streak, just bursting with creative ideas. Even when it comes to commissioned work, Lenka Glisníková and Karolína Matušková aren’t afraid to produce their photographs as they see fit, and their experience with post-production and film always makes it magic. They often manage to capture the very essence of the product. This is perhaps most obvious in the photographs of Zdeněk Vacek’s jewelry which are formally reminiscent of the aesthetic of color negatives, making the jewelry stand out in contrast from the blue tones of the background. These photographs don’t need the beautiful necks and cleavages of models, and they are just as effective as stand-alone images. They are in fact quite similar to the two photographers’ original works. The playfulness of SHOTBY.US was a perfect match for the project of singer Katarzia: for her new album Šťastné dieťa, they created a photo editorial set in a sand pit, managing to capture the local environment’s specific character (the central Bohemian pine groves forming the background for the pit’s sand dunes) and combining it with exotic and dreamy sand sculptures created in collaboration with artificial intelligence and graphic artist Jiří Mocek. Their work for the Tanec Praha 2023 festival campaign – donning the subtitle “impossible to describe, it has to be experienced” – was also a great challenge and achievement for them. The artists conceived and developed the entire visual presentation, from photographic images to video. Their aim was to create a certain tension between the excited movement of the dancers’ bodies and a virtual landscape which was added during post-production. For this project bursting with color and quivering motion, set somewhere on the threshold between soft blossoming meadows and a magic forest, SHOTBY.US received the Red Dot Design Award which is awarded to creative projects working in the sphere of marketing and media. It is again interesting to note just how natural it is for them to tap into and develop the style and aesthetic principles which have been so popular in art production over the past few years.

Tereza Rudolf