MIROSLAV TICHÝ

Miroslav Tichý was an introverted amateur photographer from the Czech Republic who bulit his own cameras and took thousands of pictures of the women in the town of Kyjov. Despite his reputation as an unkempt voyeur, Tichý had actually studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague and was a talented painter in the modernist mode. However, in 1948 he was forced to paint in the socialist mode after the communist takeover of Czechoslovakia so he quit school and moved back in with his parents. He continued to draw and paint for himself, then in the sixties began to wander through his town taking pictures with a home-made camera. In 1972, his studio was taken from him following the Soviet takeover of the country and he abandoned painting and focused solely on his home-made photographs. He would take about ninety pictures a day of women in various places around the town: walking down the street; sunbathing; at the swimming pool (through a fence- he'd been banned); shopping. Some women would smile and strike a pose if they saw him, thinking he was a crazy homeless man with a toy camera.  Because of his refusal to conform to societal norms, he was considered a dissident (threat) by the government and was hidden in psychiatric hospitals during national holidays when the streets would be busy. 

All of his photographs were developed in his home and kept carelessy around the house. He would draw over some photos to accentuate the forms within the images and cut them to improve composition. Only the interest of his friend  Roman Buxbaum ensured the preservation and eventual exhibition of his photographs, despite Tichý's disinterest in publishing the photos. He took them purely for his own enjoyment; they were meant to be personal. 
All of his photos are flawed with imperfections such as under/over-exposure, blurry focus and spots, but as Tichý said himself, "The flaws are part of it.  That's the poetry."

He built his cameras from scratch in an ingenious manner, using materials such plywood, plexiglass, asphalt, thread spools and dressmaker's elastic. This Tumblr post by IDoStuff  explains Tichý's process in an entertaining yet informative way.

I like that all the photographs he took seem private and spontaneous. You can tell that most of the women are unaware of his presence, or unconcerned by it, making the poses natural and more personal. In the photograph of the woman above, you can see the fence he was stood behind, making the subject more remote but the photograph itself more ilicit. You can get a real sense that Tichý had no connection to these women and that he's an uninvited observer of their day-to-day lives. The imperfections in the photos are a clue to the involvement of the photographer with the subject; they are clearly unprofessional and home-developed with hand drawn borders on card. The photos were never meant to be made public but are the product of an obsession.