Josef Jindřich Šechtl

Josef Jindřich Šechtl (May 9, 1877 – February 24, 1954) was a Czech photographer who specialized in photojournalism and portrait photography. On the death of his father, photographer Ignác Šechtl, Josef inherited the photographic studios of Šechtl & Voseček.

Josef Jindřich Šechtl was born in Tábor, South Bohemia, on May 9, 1877, as the second of three children. His father, Ignác Šechtl, had opened his photographic studio in Tábor in 1876, and thus Josef Jindřich was influenced by photography from his childhood.

After finishing lower high school in Tábor, the boy was particularly interested in chemigraphy (a method of printing photographs). In 1891 (at the age of 14) he started to work as a trainee in the polygraphic factory of Jan Vilím in Prague. After two years, in 1893, he changed jobs to work as a photographer in the studio of František Krátký in Kolín. Krátký's studio specialized in stereoscopy and publishing photographs as educational tools, allowing Josef Jindřich to further develop his interests in photographic printing. His certificate of a completed apprenticeship, written in 1906 by his father Ignác Šechtl, also certifies his studies in the Šechtl & Voseček studios in the period 1892–1895, apparently in parallel with his jobs in Prague and Kolín. At 22, after serving in the army (1898–1899), he started work in the affiliated Šechtl & Voseček studio in Černovice u Tábora, a town near Tábor. At this time his father Ignác was travelling with his cinematograph (motion pictures), and the Tábor studio was run by Ignác's partner Jan Voseček.

Josef Jindřich Šechtl had a wide variety of interests in photography, including portrait photography, photojournalism, documenting changes in the town of Tábor, photography of architecture, film, color photography using the process, street photography using an early Leica camera, and fine art photography influenced by photographic pictorialism (including use of the bromoil process).

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