Jan is a Czech photographer, videographer, and drone operator based in Southampton, UK, with a diverse international freelance career spanning over 17 years across various disciplines. He has built a successful career working on a wide range of projects, including photojournalism, fashion, product, maritime, and sports.

Jan has worked with acclaimed director Ridley Scott, pioneers in neurosurgery and keyhole surgery, spent time at the Broadway Dance Center in NYC, and has twice covered the Gumball 3000 Rally and Tomorrowland as a VIP photographer. His career has taken him from photographing Cristiano Ronaldo on the red carpet. Capturing Salih, the shoe cleaner on the streets of Istanbul—creating images that led him to the World Press Photo.

In 2019, Jan earned an MA in Visual Communications from Solent University and is currently an ‘Artist in Residence’ at Southampton Solent University.

A near-death experience with COVID-19 in 2021 abruptly halted Jan’s career for several months.

To help rebuild his career, Jan founded a local community with fellow photographer Tom Westbury. He began documenting his local area, capturing ordinary, everyday scenes, and rethinking his approach to photography with a new narrative. The community is now well-established.

Jan has since built a growing portfolio of landscape work, focusing on Southampton and its surroundings, which has become a key part of his practice alongside his freelance work—work that he is quickly rebuilding following his recovery from COVID-19.

Together with Tom, Jan now supports the local photography community in and around Southampton. They have founded a collective of photographers dedicated to documenting ‘place’—SCUL (SC for South Coast and UL for Urban Landscape). Jan is eager to expand the community and seek opportunities to exhibit and publish their work, with hopes of building relationships with local art and cultural institutions both in Southampton and beyond.

For his landscape work, Jan uses a simple setup with various cameras. His commercial and freelance work can be found on Instagram @janpavelka.cz, and his urban landscape work is showcased at @yanny.jpeg.