Otakar Hürka (Prague, 1935) started as a lab technician in a hospital, after graduating from Medical School in Prague. He began to photograph as a student for several daily newspapers and sport organizations. Hürka was a fervent sportsman, who played ice hockey, basketball and tennis. In 1955, he started to work for one of the main sports newspapers in Czechoslovakia, and quickly became its chief photographer. After 11 years, he switched to the weekly magazine Vlasta, and not long after that he became the chief photographer of one of the biggest magazines in Czechoslovakia at the time: Kvety. Hürka ended his career as the official photographer of the Czechoslovakian televison network.
