LIVING THE DREAM

Featuring Luka Korynta

Written by Des Dare Barragan

Bright red hair, a button-up, and cuffed jeans met with fun yellow socks peeking out of his high top boots; Luka Korynta met us in an outfit marked by the trends of the places he’s been. Like his attire, there was a natural flow to Luka’s persona. Gentle kindness entwined with a European pace that kept the conversation going but was never overbearing. He spoke with genuine friendliness.

Luka’s story begins in Prague, Czech Republic, where he was born and eventually employed as a sports journalist. He landed this job on a whim: “I was watching basketball a lot, and at that time, there was a Czech player drafted to [the] NBA, but no one was covering it. I just emailed the two biggest newspapers in the country, and I said, ‘Hey, no one’s doing it, and I literally stayed up to watch the draft; I can write about it if you want.’” Luka got a response, and one of the newspapers was searching for a writer to do a weekly basketball column. The newspaper offered to train Luka and give him a shot! Within that same year, the newspaper became short-staffed and coached Luka in an editing role. He gradually moved on to regular assignments traveling to New York and covering stories on teams like the Knicks and Rangers. Luka’s bold nature initiated a series of opportunities that led him to a new country and, eventually, a new profession.

At the rise of the Instagram era in 2012, Luka was walking around New York City casually taking photos on his iPhone 5 and Fujifilm X100 camera. He recounts that it was then that he began learning photography by simply taking street photos and posting them on Instagram. “I got featured by Instagram, which, back in the day, you got like 3,000 followers in the first two hours. It was a big deal. I was like, ‘Okay, I guess I’m famous now, so I’m going to keep posting these street photos!’” About a year later, Luka landed his first wedding gig, “I brought just [a] 16 GB card and one battery and the camera died halfway through! I had to plug it in during the reception! That first wedding was definitely eye-opening because I was like, ‘hey, things are already beautiful, and I could just document it like I did with the streets of New York.’” Luka fell in love with capturing the moments and people that already exist, and after a year of shooting for friends, he pursued a full-time career as a wedding photographer.

Luka launched his photo business back in Prague and quickly grew in popularity as there were few wedding photographers in his homeland of 11 million. His business flowed with the trends of social media and wedding culture, as clients desired more untraditional locations or DIY designs and wanted their most memorable moments captured for that Instagram post. “It really helped that the boom of weddings and social media was happening the same time that I decided to go full-time,” says Luka. He was in the right place at the right time.

Luka journeyed from happenstance New York street pics to amateur wedding shots edited on VSCO desktop presets, a year booked with 35 weddings, speaking engagements in Spain, and being a low-key European wedding influencer! “I don’t know why I moved here because I lived in the Czech Republic, which doesn’t even have Euro currency, and I was able to drive to Switzerland and get paid five times as much as I would get paid at home and bring that money back home. It was quite a nice era, then I moved here and became broke again!”

We feel you, Luka!

Luka moved to the lush greenery of Portland, Oregon in 2018 to expand his career in the states. Within the first weeks of moving, Luka navigated significant life experiences, including American immigration and the complex process of obtaining a visa, the cultural shift from the walkable cities of Prague to the widespread cities of America, seeing the shocking rates and neglect of homelessness in the states, meeting his wife, and gaining knowledge that would reshape his family history.

“I also found out I was adopted the day when I moved here, not that someone planned to tell me, but it just landed in my inbox from a biological family [member]. My mom is still my mom, but my dad adopted me. That’s been a process, too, to kind of deal with that from [a] distance while trying to figure out how to live in America and move my business that is well established over there and start fresh here. All the while getting to know my future wife.”

With humility and resilience, Luka moved the focus from his life tribulations to the accomplishments he never imagined achieving.

At age 31, his dreams continue to unfold in reality as Luka, Grace, and their dog Jesse made a move from Portland to San Diego (three months ago). San Diego had become a haven that Luka & Grace often visited during the first year of Covid, and they fell in love with our city’s accessibility, relaxed lifestyle, and diversity. Luka tells us that it’s not just the diversity in people but the local flora and animal life that pulls him in. He described San Diego as having the “right amount of interesting people doing interesting things with their life without them being too big, overwhelming, or just competitive.”

The effects of Covid led Luka’s family to San Diego and steered his work closer to documentary-style photography. He explained how this shift took place at his sister-in-law’s micro wedding. Reduced to a few family members and his personal camera, there was no pressure, and Luka simply took photos. He captured something different, something that felt personal, and he wasn’t the only one doing this. A pandemic that mandated isolation, and either canceled or limited gatherings, also inspired the next transition in the wedding industry. Couples and photographers gravitated towards documenting versus curating memories, which is precisely what Luka found himself achieving at his sister-inlaw’s wedding.

Luka tells us that Grace would capture photos of clouds to remember what a day looked like, and she’s taught him how the little details add to memories and can trigger quickly forgotten memories. This is a practice he’s added to his work, whether it’s capturing photos of the sky on a couple’s wedding day, empty plates after the reception dinner, or guests sitting at the table. Things that may not have been visually pleasing to him in the past have become staples in making his work beautiful and personal.

“I definitely got really close to burnout so many times because you do weddings, even though it’s a different couple, a different place, it can become quite repetitive unless your approach is kind of fresh, so like adding film and trying to be more documentary than having this set of poses in your head.” By stepping out of the ritual of doing things, Luka seeks ways to yield to the present raw moments of whatever environment he is in.

We asked Luka for anything he’d like to leave our readers with, and with his all-time favorite movie La La Land in mind, he responded, “I would never really settle anymore for a place that I’m not happy at. If there’s a way to make your dream life happen, then life’s too short to not at least try. Life is complicated; people need to be close to family, money is obviously a problem, and jobs and stuff, but if there’s a way to figure something out, then I probably would like to inspire people to do that too instead of just dream about it your whole life. You need to sacrifice something, but you also gain whatever you always wanted, and that might be worth it.”

Follow Luka

Luka’s Instagram | @lukaskorynta

Luka’s Website | www.lukaskorynta.com