Videotime 35 / Jan Poupě & Jan Novák

Jan Poupě & Jan Novák: Observer, 2012

The book is based on the project "The Observer" in which Jan Poupě shot various places and the landscape from the bird's-eye view by means of a camera attached to a chamber kite. The visual core of the publication is created by these photographic records which Jan Poupě together with Jan Novák subsequently accompanied by pictures and graphics. The innovative aspect consists in the editing of the whole publication. The photographs are arranged not chronologically, but according to altitude in which the camera was located in the time of exposure. The book begins at the lowest point in the Czech Republic and gradually progresses through diverse levels and situations to the top of Sněžka (the highest mountain in Bohemia). The whole system of the book is the allegory of realizing one's place and physical capacities in the space of the landscape we live in.