The power of Stano's photographic view is the way of producing secrets and mystery. As far as there is something swaying between certainty, as long as the situation, composition of bodies is surprising and inviting the imagination to complete and search, one can be sure the author is taking the right way. There are pictures, however, failing to provide the certainty – uncertainty, and then the cooly positioned model lacking any kind of mystery, results in just a stylization cramp, or manierism.
It is not possible to specify all the influences that had been shaping Tono Stano's (1960) approach to photography. However, the impact of his childhood and youth spent in Vokokany, a south Slovakian village, upon his thinking and values hierarchy cannot be denied. Strict catholicism meets with rustical decisiveness and vitality.
The inspiring environment at the school of Applied Arts in Bratislava was equally important. Stano's progress accelarated mainly thanks to lesson based on partnership and freedom from outstanding photographer of those times, Milota Havrankova. Later on, there was a strong and positive influence from meeting certain personalities at the FAMU Department of photography in Prague. An important thing was that neither Stano nor his peers let themselves be resricted by educational rules. They were always stricking out.
Stano's production originated from opposition to the existing conditions and dissatisfaction with the content and methods used by his predecessors. The revival of surrealism and the search for and production of unusual connections were a positive moment. Stano refused the truthfulness of documentary photography. This may seem senseless unless we realize that Bresson's humanistic photojournalism, and cinema variété, and theories of the « decisive » or « non-decisive » moment also tried to capture truth and nothing but truth.
At the same time they could not make dreams, fragments of frightening or happy images apparent, although these thengs are indespensable to the truth of man. Here are the roots of stano's belief that « the secret is what has remained after man had said all ». He is concerned with everything hidden and unknown, which surely exists and which is invisible but true».
Vaclav Macek (extracts)