http://www.messynessychic.com/2013/0...dboard-camera/

The Reclusive Peeping Tom Photographer and his Cardboard Camera



Charming eccentric or tolerated local boogyman? The townspeople of Kyjov in Czech Republic could never quite decide. Miroslav Tichý took nearly a hundred photographs a day with his homemade camera, wandering around the streets of his hometown, often spotted at bus stops, the main square, the park and the swimming pool, although he was frequently arrested for lingering around the local pool taking pictures of unsuspecting women.

When he returned to his chaotic and cluttered home afte a day of shooting, he would develop and print his pictures, sometimes crudely frame and decorate them, but ultimately cast them aside into a mess of untitled, undated and unseen photographs. For more than twenty years, his work would remain secret until a childhood friend and neighbour discovered his prints amongst the chaos of undeveloped rolls and cardboard cameras. His work has since been celebrated at museums and galleries across the world including London, Paris and New York.


Tichý is pictured here with one of his long telephoto lenses. He ground lenses out of plastic with toothpaste and ash, putting them together with cardboard toilet paper tubes, dressmaker’s elastic and old camera parts he found.

Tichý famously once said, “First of all, you have to have a bad camera”, and, “If you want to be famous, you must do something more badly than anybody in the entire world.”