Petr Toman

Petr Toman (b. 1975) is a photojournalist, storyteller and content designer with twenty years of experience under his belt. He applies himself in long-term documentary projects, mentoring and commercial assignments.

Building on many years of experience he earned as an art director in publishing house  and advertising agencies, his work combines photography and written text. He is interested in blurring the distinction between commercial and authorial work, self-publishing and new forms of content publishing.

The key feature of his documentary work is a long-term interest in the documented topic, building social connections with the interviewees and tracking their stories over time. For example, on the story of Lukáš Hirka, a modern-day war veteran with a brain injury, he has been working for ten years.

Petr’s work has long demonstrated active interest in the psychological aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear accident in northern Ukraine. In 2014, he collected stories of people on Maidan who were confronted with extreme violence on the streets of Kyiv. Since 2015, he has travelled to the Donbas region of western Ukraine to look into the gloomy depths of war trauma.

In the Czech Republic, Petr cooperates with the prestigious NGOs Post Bellum and Memory of Nations, for which he photographs portraits and documentary series about former political prisoners, war veterans and Holocaust survivors.

His commercial work combines documentary approach, storytelling and content marketing. He works with companies long-term, which gives him control over distribution, use and copyright, the quality of the visual content and, most importantly, the ability to continuously create a visual identity for brands. He likes to work with small brands not bound by corporate rules and unified graphic manuals.