Students Aleksandra Soboleva, Yelyzaveta Taranova and Ha Trang Phan took the top three places in the anonymous judges' evaluation. The competition was attended by 27 authors out of 60 officially registered students of the university-wide elective course Digital Photography Processing (A7B33DIF), which is offered by the Department of Cybernetics of FEE CTU. The first three winners received not only diplomas but also valuable book prizes of their choice. The special prize of professor Vaclav Hlavac (personal prize regardless of the jury's opinion) was awarded to eighteen-year-old Illia Kryvoviaz for his determination and work during his studies (PHOTOGRAPHY BOOK, CTU Publishing House). The special prize of professional Roman Sejkot was awarded to Kamila Zelenakova - an endless calendar donated by FOMEI, which can be viewed by women and accompanying men in mammological surgeries. All of the appointees study at the Faculty of Medicine of the Czech Technical University. Three other special prizes - licenses of the advanced photo editor ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2024 - were drawn in a raffle and won by the authors present, completing the top eight exhibitors.
Artificial Intelligence won nothing this year (not even a consolation prize), as it did a year ago, although students were repeatedly encouraged to use it by lecturer Roman Sejkot at the beginning of the semester. This is in contrast to the class of 2022, where AI had a significant share of the 1st place of Sami Salah (Algorithmic Woman, see Hall of Fame A7B33DIF), who had tamed it nicely before the global boom of photographic kitsch.
In addition to the impeccably printed photographs (this year for the first time in the DTP studio of the FEL), one can read in the Rector's Clubs essays on Photography. A must-read. CTU students are not machines and their opinions on the field of study are very interesting. Some have been making their work easier with AI for a few years now, but you won't find those on the stands, they have low scores. How to tell? Simple. The author has so far been irreplaceable by the machine. It's common knowledge that machine-written plays, music, books and paintings haven't had any major successes so far. It seems that the students of CTU are independent and creative people who do not need a machine crutch. At least when it comes to personal soulful visual and verbal expression.
See for yourself. After the exhibition, the student work will be available to view in the Hall of Fame on the A7B33DIF course website, but there is no substitute for the monitor print. The humorous workmanship, manual dexterity and art of Eliška Nejedlá or Ondřej Maceška cannot be converted into zeros and ones; the encounter with the original is non-transferable and unique.
Text: Roman Sejkot, Aleš Němeček
Photos from the opening (by Aleš Němeček) and gallery of the winning artists can be found here