Josef Koudelka was born in 1938 in Boskovice, Moravia, a region of Czechoslovakia. While growing up, he photographed his family and surroundings with a 6 x 6 Bakelite camera (Bakelite is one of the earliest plastics made from synthetic components). In 1961, he earned a degree from the Czech Technical University in Prague. Later that year he staged his first photographic exhibition.
Koudelka returned from photographing gypsies in Romania just two days before the Soviet invasion, in 1968. He photographed the military forces of the Warsaw Pact as they invaded Prague and destroyed the Czech reforms. His negatives were smuggled out of Prague into the hands of the Magnum agency, who published them anonymously in The Sunday Times magazine. The photos became dramatic international symbols and the "anonymous photographer was awarded the Overseas Press Club's Robert Capa Gold Medal for photographs requiring exceptional courage.
In 1970 he applied for a three-month working visa and fled to England. He applied for political asylum, and in 1971, joined Magnum photos and stayed for more than a decade. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Koudelka sustained his work and continued to exhibit and publish major projects like his first book, Gypsies, and Exiles, his second.
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