Josef Koudelka: Diaries

A rare glimpse into the mind and artistic process of one of the world's greatest photographers.

Distilled from sixty-nine journals kept over the course of fifty-plus years, Josef Koudelka: Diaries offers a look inside the mind and artistic process of the iconoclastic Czech photographer renowned for a life in exile and legendary projects on the Roma, the 1968 Soviet-led invasion in Prague, and the devastating impact humans have on the landscape. Facsimile pages from the diaries, along with images by the photographer, including self-portraits, lend the volume an immediacy and authenticity. As curator Tomás Pospěch writes, "Koudelka's diaries are a 'cookbook' of classic photography. He associated with the most renowned photographers. His notes sum up his rich experience, including with the now-vanishing technology of analog black-and-white photography. His remarks, quips, and stories reappear, just as he repeatedly made resolutions, affirmed the rules he had adopted, and recalled earlier events and dreams." Diaries is a perfect companion to Josef Koudelka: Next (2023), the visual biography by Melissa Harris.

About the author

Josef Koudelka (born in Moravia, Czech Republic, 1938) is a member of Magnum Photos and has received the Prix Nadar, Grand Prix national de la photographie, HCB Award, and Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography. His work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art and International Center of Photography, New York; Hayward Gallery, London; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; and Palais de Tokyo, Paris.

Product details

• Assisted by: Josef Koudelka (Photographs), Harris Melissa (Editor), Marzia Paton (Translation), Paton Derek (Translation), Paton Marzia (Translation)
• Publisher: Ingram Publishers Services
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Release: 12.05.2026
• EAN: 9781597115933
• ISBN: 978-1-59711-593-3
• No. of pages: 448
• Dimensions: 210 mm x 147 mm x 38 mm
• Weight: 635 g
• Illustrations: 53 photos and 36 illustrations
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Art > Photography, film, video, TV; Diaries, letters & journals, PHOTOGRAPHY / Individual Photographers / Monographs, PHOTOGRAPHY / Criticism, PHOTOGRAPHY / Individual Photographers / Essays, Individual photographers, Individual artists, art monographs, PHOTOGRAPHY / Individual Photographers / Artists' Books, Published diaries, letters and journals