Saudek began his studies in graphic art and photoengraving in the early 1950s. In 1963, he devoted himself to fine art photography full-time and, that same year, was given a one-man show in Europe. Just as art itself can be viewed as the artist's raison d'être, so Saudek's declared raison d'être in art photography was to produce a body of work that would elicit the passage of time.

His work is in the collections of the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, the George Eastman House at Rochester, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., the Cincinnati Art Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, et al.