Yuri Dojc | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | May 12, 1946 Humenné, Slovakia |
| Nationality | Slovak-Canadian |
| Education | Ryerson University |
| Occupation | Photographer |
| Notable work | Last Folio, Marble Woman |
| Website | www |
Yuri Dojc (/doy-dge; born May 12, 1946) is a Slovak-Canadian fine arts photographer. Dojc currently resides in Toronto, Canada, with work internationally exhibited in countries such as Brazil, Slovakia, Rwanda as well as across Canada.
Dojc was born in Humenné, eastern Slovakia and spent much of his youth there. His father was a secondary school headmaster, and his mother was a teacher. His family later relocated to Bratislava where Dojc studied mechanical engineering and psychology at Comenius University. In 1968, during a summer exchange program in London, United Kingdom, the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia swept his hometown and forced Dojc to remain in the UK. On advice from his father, he relocated to Toronto, Canada the following year.
He was admitted to Ryerson Polytechnical Institute in 1972, following a serendipitous conversation with the dean at the time. After running into each other on campus, he noticed Dojc's Slovakian accent and took an interest in his background, and subsequently invited him to attend Ryerson as a photography student for Ryerson's Photographic Arts Department.
Before graduating in 1975, Dojc became the photo editor of the student weekly EyeOpener, [1] working alongside now National Post journalist Christie Blatchford, [2] CTV reporter Paul Workman, [3] as well as comedian Paul Chato.
Dojc now calls Toronto his hometown, where he married his current wife, Eva, in 1971. Together they have two children.
Dojc's first two years in Toronto were spent doing odd jobs before landing an assistant job with Peter Croydon, a British commercial photographer, who was active in Toronto's advertising scene in the 1970s. Dojc spent only two weeks with him, as he found himself weary by the commercial nature of the work despite enjoying Croydon's work. Dojc moved onto being an on-staff photographer at an audiovisual company, Avcov, now dissolved, before moving on to freelance work and ultimately beginning his career as a full-time independent photographer.
During and after his schooling, Dojc's early photographs followed the classic approaches of photography. He explored still life photography, photographing popular subjects such as doors, windows, chairs and flowers before shifting towards human subjects, predominantly women. The 1980s saw the height of the poster business, during which Dojc flourished, experimenting with surrealism in photographs thanks to the introduction of programs such as Adobe Photoshop, allowing him to explore digital collaging techniques. Posters such as Legs, [4] Bicycle and Chair were some of Dojc's most notable works. His photographs also appeared in Joel Schumacher's film, D.C. Cab (1983), as well as in commercial advertisements for companies such as FedEx, Apple, GM, Porsche, Canon, Club Med, and Panasonic, to name a few.
Man Ray was one of Dojc's primary inspirations when approaching his nude studies. Dojc's nude studies were on the classical side, with experimental elements of surrealism and collage. Parallel to advertising work during university, Dojc worked towards creating his first collection of nudes that would eventually become his first published book, Marble Woman. Marble Woman, was published by Firefly Books in 1993.
More recently, Dojc has been experimenting with more gritty, experimental approaches to nude photography, focusing more on character than beauty.
Last Folio was an expansive project that preserved the cultural memory of the Holocaust in Slovakia. [5] It began when Dojc photographed World War II Slovakian war veterans, photographing nearly 30 portraits and collecting 80 textbooks out of a vast collection found at a local abandoned school.
The project started thanks to a chance encounter at Dojc's father's funeral, when Ruzena Vajnorska, a friend of the family and survivor of the holocaust, needed a lift from the funeral. During their encounter, Vajnorska shared her history with Dojc, inspiring intrigue into the history of the Holocaust in Slovakia. With the help of Vajnorska, veterans from the community congregated to be photographed by Dojc, thus starting the collection of portraits for Last Folio.
This project was under the watch of Martin Butora, the then ambassador of the Slovak Embassy in Washington, D.C., later to become the human rights advisor to the Slovakian president. As the project expanded, growing in photographs and involvement from the Slovak community, it gained sponsorship from the Slovak government, as well as Bertelsmann, thanks to the special interest of then president, Thomas Rabe.
In 2005, Last Folio expanded from an image based project to include a short documentary film as well. When Dojc met Katya Krausova, [6] a Slovak producer and filmmaker, they formed a partnership and produced a 20-minute documentary about the project. Dojc and Krausova worked tirelessly with a film crew, filming in the small town of Bardejov.
A year later, while Dojc continued photographing Slovakian veterans, word travelled, reaching a man who was a caretaker of an abandoned school. He urged Dojc to visit the space and explore its preserved history. There, Dojc discovered the petrified religious books left behind by the students before WWII, thus widening the scope of the project to include a preservation of not only personal but cultural history as well. From then on, detailed photographs of these preserved texts became a permanent part of the Last Folio collection. [7]
North Is Freedom is a photographic essay that includes portraits of descendants of slaves who escaped to Canada from the United States before the American Civil War using the Underground Railroad.
Dojc began photographing descendants in Toronto before traveling over southern Ontario, including Windsor and Amhersburg, and expanding the project further to include Halifax and Owen Sound. Dojc was able to photograph over 50 people, enough to qualify North Is Freedom for an exhibition.
North Is Freedom's first exhibition [8] was held in 2016 at the Canadian Embassy in Washington D.C. under sponsorship of TD Bank, Epson Canada, as well as the Government of Canada. The show remained there before moving to the American Embassy in Ottawa, ON and then the Grey Roots Museum in 2017. [9] Dojc was also invited to Uncle Tom's Cabin site in Dresden, ON to lecture on the project. [10]
CKLN-FM was a community radio station based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
TMU Bold, formerly known as the Ryerson Rams, are the varsity athletic teams that represent Toronto Metropolitan University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Toronto Metropolitan University operates 11 men's and women's varsity teams that compete provincially as part of Ontario University Athletics (OUA) and nationally as part of U Sports.
Erotic photography is a style of art photography of an erotic, sexually suggestive or sexually provocative nature.
On The Record is the masthead news title produced by journalism students at Toronto Metropolitan University in Toronto, Canada. Students produce daily news for the publication's website, live-blog local events relevant to students and broadcast TV news, also available on the website, at least once a week.
Edward Burtynsky is a Canadian photographer and artist known for his large format photographs of industrial landscapes. His works depict locations from around the world that represent the increasing development of industrialization and its impacts on nature and the human existence. It is most often connected to the philosophical concept of the sublime, a trait established by the grand scale of the work he creates, though they are equally disturbing in the way they reveal the context of rapid industrialization.
Larry Towell is a Canadian photographer, poet, and oral historian. Towell is known for his photographs of sites of political conflict in the Ukraine, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Standing Rock and Afghanistan, among others. In 1988, Towell became the first Canadian member of Magnum Photos.
Nude photography is the creation of any photograph which contains an image of a nude or semi-nude person, or an image suggestive of nudity. Nude photography is undertaken for a variety of purposes, including educational uses, commercial applications and artistic creations. The exhibition or publication of nude photographs may be controversial, more so in some cultures or countries than in others, and especially if the subject is a minor.
Naomi Harris is a Canadian photographer living in Toronto. She is known for her portraits of people from sub-cultures such as retirement communities and nudist beaches.
Toronto Metropolitan University is a public research university located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The university's core campus is situated within the Garden District, although it also operates facilities elsewhere in Toronto. The university operates seven academic divisions/faculties, the Faculty of Arts, the Faculty of Community Services, the Faculty of Engineering and Architectural Science, the Faculty of Science, The Creative School, the Lincoln Alexander School of Law, and the Ted Rogers School of Management. Many of these faculties are further organized into smaller departments and schools. The university also provides continuing education services through the G. Raymond Chang School of Continuing Education.
Patrik Jandak is a Slovak photographer. From 2001 to 2004, he worked as the official photographer to President of Slovakia Rudolf Schuster and from 2004 to 2005 as the photographer of Slovak President Ivan Gasparovic. In April 2005, he moved to Canada. Jandak started as a documentary photographer and published two photography books. Since he moved to Canada his photography shifted to studio and nude photography.
CJRU, branded as CJRU.ca and originally branded as The Scope at Ryerson, is a low-powered AM campus and community radio station, owned and operated by Radio Ryerson Incorporated at Toronto Metropolitan University, which was granted a broadcast license by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission on December 11, 2014.
Fine art nude photography is a genre of fine-art photography which depicts the nude human body with an emphasis on form, composition, emotional content, and other aesthetic qualities. The nude has been a prominent subject of photography since its invention, and played an important role in establishing photography as a fine art medium. The distinction between fine art photography and other subgenres is not absolute, but there are certain defining characteristics.
Rehab Nazzal is a Palestinian-born multidisciplinary artist based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Caitlin Cronenberg is a Canadian photographer and filmmaker, known for her celebrity portraits and editorials. She is David Cronenberg's daughter and Brandon Cronenberg's sister.
Elaine Ling (1946-2016) was a Canadian photographer.
Maia-Mari Sutnik, was the first Curator of the Curatorial Department of Photography at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto.
Wynne Neilly is a Canadian artist and photographer based in Toronto, focused on photographing queer and transgender people.
Robert Burley is a Canadian photographer of architecture and the urban landscape. He is based in Toronto, Canada, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
Blake Fitzpatrick FRSC is a photographer, curator and writer, who is concerned with the photographic representation of the nuclear era, contemporary militarism and the Berlin Wall as a mobile ruin.
Photographs have been taken in the area now known as Canada since 1839, by both amateurs and professionals. In the 19th century, commercial photography focussed on portraiture. But professional photographers were also involved in political and anthropological projects: they were brought along on expeditions to Western Canada and were engaged to document Indigenous peoples in Canada by government agencies.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
| People | |
| Other | |
