Gomma Photography Grant 2024
Delta Diaries
Photographer
Pavel Nasadil
Delta Diaries
21 Jan, 2025
The Delta Diaries is a photographic essay from one of the poorest regions of the United States, the delta of the Mississippi River. Rich in history and culture as the land of the blues, it is where blues music begun and still lives on. Its history includes the tragedies of slavery and poverty, and joyful celebrations of life, friendship and culture. Portraits of blues musicians, local sharecroppers, churgoers, the homeless in the cities, landscapes and urban situations add to a diary of wider visual examination of the life in the southern US regions where single images are connected by the spirit of the American music and history.
About the photographer
Pavel Nasadil
"Pavel Nasadil (Czech Republic, b. 1975) is an autodidact photographer. Pavel’s interest lies in portraying the stories of marginalized groups and individuals through photography. Lately he has begun to pursue the diary tradition of subjective documentary developing his own approach to single images and stories. In 2018 Pavel won the Czech Press Photo Award for his series Awaitig Trial from juvenile prisons in Sierra Leone. In the same year he was selected to Nikon NOOR Academy Masterclass in Budapest organized by NOOR photojournalists. In 2020 he won the Maghreb Photography Award (Best project outside Maghreb), in 2023 he was a finalist. In 2023 he won 2nd prize in Czech Press Photo Daily Life category. He started the World Documentary Photography in Prague, a small project inviting photographers on a short residence to Prague. To this date the participants were Jan Grarup (2018), Magnum member Paolo Pellegrin (2019), Pep Bonet (2022), Czech photographers Viktor Kolar (2022) and Marketa Luskacova (2024). Pavel’s photography background comes from workshop classes with Swedish photographer Anders Petersen and Slovak photographer Matus Zajac."
