Photographer and traveller. Winner of many international and national (Polish) photography competitions (including the Grand Photography Competition of National Geographic Poland, Leica Street Photo, Travel Photographer of the Year, Polish Sports Photography Competition, three-time winner of the ‘Frames from the World’ competition), honoured in the field of travel, portrait, reportage and sports photography.
My photographs have been published in The Sun, The Mirror, Daily Mail, The Telegraph, National Geographic, Poznaj Świat, Digital Camera UK and NPM Magazyn Turystyki Górskiej. I have presented photographs in solo and group exhibitions (including ‘Bangladesh with a reporter’s eye 2023’, ‘Black & White Athens 2017′, ‘Photocrowd & Alamy Exhibition London 2015’, ‘Travels with a Pole’s eye’, ‘Poland – contexts’, ‘Indian Mysteries’).
Currently, I am working on a long-term project ‘Portrait of the Past’, in which I document disappearing cultures using historical photographic techniques, in particular ‘Wet Plate Collodion’.
I have been leading photographic expeditions around the world for the past eight years. The photographs taken during the trips by my students become awarded, presented at the exhibitions and published in the press.
In the era of globalization and unification, we can still discover communities living in the original way, maintaining their rituals, thousand-year-old traditions, costumes and architecture. The aim of the project is to ethernise people, who – although still alive – are irreversably fading into oblivion, as their unique customs are often cultivated only by the oldest representatives and therefore likely to pass away with them. My deep will is to capture this vanishing world in photographs, but also in ethnographic publications.
The photographs are taken with the use of historical techniques, invented and performed in the 19th century. Anachronistic nature of these methods reflects the past-oriented approach of the project. The captured individuals seem to correspond with them rather than being a part of a present world. Although made nowadays, the photographs appear to originate from the past centuries, which also emphasises that photographed people and their lives are becoming relics of the past.
On the other hand, the project is a tribute to the first photographers documenting the world. Artists such as John Thompson, Edward S. Curtis and Samuel Bourne can be named the first travel photographers, presenting the beauty and exoticism of the ‘distant world’. Their work required extraordinary effort, determination and courage. Complicated photography technique involved carring a portable darkroom and usage of hardly accessible chemicals. Additionally, reaching out isolated (and isolating) communities was challenging not only from the point of view of the logistics, but also the travellers’ safety.