A while back I watched a YouTube video about a Czech photographer, Marek Ondracek. He takes remarkable landscape photos using the Olympus OM-1 in high-resolution mode. I was so taken with his compositions and technique that I got in touch with him and arranged to spend 3 days in Czechia in April 2025 on a private workshop.



The area we went to is called Moravian Tuscany, and is to the east of Brno, which itself is in the south-east of the country. This area exhibits a unique folded landscape, seen only in Moravia, the original Tuscany region of Italy, and in the Palouse in northwestern USA. Apart from being a very attractive wine-growing region, this area is famous for some classic landscape views, usually involving a small element of the folded landscape in dappled sunlight.



Photographs of this kind are taken at very long focal lengths, often up to 400mm, which is unusual for landscape work, but which compresses the geographic folds to produce a very pleasing image. This was my first time taking this kind of landscape photo, and the weather wasn't ideal, but I got some reasonable images, and learned a huge amount. I hope you like them





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