“There was no censorship”: Tomki Němec on photographing Václav Havel

Speaking to Czech Radio, Němec recalled how he first started photographing Havel in December 1989, about a week before he was elected president.

“A student photography agency called Radost had been established at FAMU, the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. Someone suggested that it would be good to document the presidential election.

“Until then, I had mainly photographed people in the streets. I was interested in their demonstrations and what ordinary people were doing, and I wasn’t particularly interested in Civic Forum.

“So, two or three days before the election, I started going to Civic Forum meetings. That was when I saw Havel in person for the second time in my life. I began photographing him.”

Němec initially expected to document the presidential election for just one day, but the assignment gradually turned into a much longer commitment.

“On 29 December, I went to his apartment in the morning and documented the presidential election from morning until evening. The student agency then suggested that it would be good to continue for another week. We did that, and one week turned into a month, then three years, and eventually even longer.”

Němec worked with Havel until the end of 1992 and returned to photographing him in 2007. He continued until Havel’s death, though by then several photographers were sharing the task of documenting the president’s activities.

During those first three years, Němec tried to spend as much time with Havel as possible. At times, he says, he spent more time with the president than with his own family.

“Those were hectic years. We were constantly travelling, flying around Czechoslovakia and going abroad. It’s difficult to put an exact figure on it, but I think we were together for 15 or 16 hours a day on average, sometimes practically around the clock.

“He was very open and let me photograph whatever I wanted, however I wanted. There was no censorship. For a photographer, that was extraordinary. If someone photographed me like that, I would probably put up with it for half a day before telling them to get lost.”

Němec also recalled how Havel reacted to being photographed.

“Even after almost 40 years, I still think Václav Havel barely noticed it. My experience was that he didn’t make a big deal of being photographed and didn’t particularly enjoy it. I don’t think he went to exhibitions where he himself was the subject.

“As a boss, if I can call him that, he was absolutely wonderful. He let me do what I wanted, almost as if I weren’t there. That is the ideal situation for a photographer.”

According to Němec, there were only a couple of occasions during those first three years when Havel showed that he was unhappy about being photographed. One of them came during a trip to Norway, when the two men were travelling by helicopter. Němec did not understand Havel’s reaction at the time.

“I spent the following week feeling miserable, wondering what I had done wrong. I never had the courage to ask him. Years later, while working on a new book, I learned that Havel actually disliked flying in helicopters. That had never occurred to me.

“I thought perhaps he was annoyed because he was wearing headphones. I wondered whether his vanity had got the better of him and he simply didn’t want to be photographed looking ridiculous. At the time, I felt wronged, and I still remember the incident clearly.”

During his first years in office, Havel enjoyed making unannounced visits, arriving somewhere without warning. This left the authorities little time to prepare, and the police could not alert other forces in advance. Němec photographed one such visit in May 1990, during the celebrations marking the liberation of the western Bohemian town of Plzeň.

“At one point, the president decided to visit Bory Prison and see the cell where he had been imprisoned. In the photograph, you can see a prison guard walking along a passageway, holding his baton raised behind his back, while the president and his security detail walk ahead of him. Havel enjoyed this sort of thing.”

Perhaps Němec’s best-known photo of Havel shows the president being caught by a wave on a beach in Portugal. The image was included in the travelling World Press Photo exhibition. Němec recalled how the photograph came about.

“There were three photographers, but I was the one willing to let the wave soak my shoes, too. I’m not saying that to boast about how good I am, but because it was a moment when I had to make a decision. Either I kept my shoes dry, or I got them wet and took the picture. I chose to take the picture. Looking back, it paid off.”

Although Havel remains one of the central subjects of his work, Němec has also documented Czech tramping culture and the lives of ordinary people. His more recent projects include Through Prague, a long-term series of black-and-white photographs taken on a mobile phone and published mainly on Facebook, and a series documenting Amerikánka, a theatre project directed by Viktor Tauš.

Asked by Czech Radio what Havel might think of his legacy today, Němec was reluctant to speak on his behalf.

“I’m always reluctant to say what he would have thought or said. But from the way I knew him as a young man, I can say that he wasn’t someone who was intoxicated by power. He was a very down-to-earth person. He certainly wasn’t someone who wanted to be celebrated.

“Perhaps if he were still alive, society wouldn’t glorify him to the same extent. But I think he would still have the same devoted audience of people who appreciated what he did for Czechoslovakia and, later, the Czech Republic. Thanks to him, we became much more visible internationally. At the same time, I am convinced that he wouldn’t have made too much of all this attention.”