Dostal is a peer of Josef Koudelka, Josef Sudek, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Elliott Erwitt. In 1989, Erwitt expressed his admiration for Dostal’s work in a letter, noting that they both shared a certain “photographic attitude.” Dostal’s lyric and wry observations of Soviet-era life in Prague are cleverly documented in his photographs.

His most famous ensemble is the **Summer People**, created between 1968 and 1990 in Zlenice on the Sázava River. He typically captures the most intense and surprising moments of normal people, with subtle humor and the ability to condense the most disparate elements into a single image.

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František Dostál (1938–2022) was a Czech photographer. He graduated from the School of Mechanical Industry in Prague, where he first came into contact with photography. Although many of his photographs were published and exhibited, he never became a professional photographer and continued to work as a machine tool builder for the Škoda company until his retirement. He lived in Prague.