The last time (I wrote this text on the 2nd of September, 2024), I noticed that I had recently changed my approach to photographing drunkards.
Summer 2024 was quite hot. The last time I was able to chill outside was in mid-June while my beloved Kamilka and I were in Parnu, Estonia. Indeed, it was 13 degrees Celsius (55,4 degrees Fahrenheit) for one night while we were there. Still, while being in Warsaw from mid-June until the end of August, it was more than 21 degrees Celsius (73,4 degrees Fahrenheit) for most days. Often, it was more than 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit). But why do I write about the weather? It is because while walking and doing street photography, I frequently saw sleeping drunkards on benches, at bus stops, or lying on the ground.
Of course, during the previous years, I sometimes photographed sleeping drunkards.
I did not do it at the beginning of the summer of 2024. I preferred to move further and seek other, more interesting topics to photograph. Still, when I saw for the fourth or fifth time sleeping drunkards, I decided to change my attitude towards them. I decided to photograph a sleeping drunkard every time I saw him. For most years of my life, I preferred not to do it because I assumed Warsaw had much more exciting frames to capture. Now, I accept that sleeping drunkards are inseparable elements of the capital of Poland.
That’s why I plan to photograph sleeping drunkards until the end of my life.
I frequently wrote in the past that one of the aims of my creative activities is to photograph and present Warsaw’s gut, the most mundane and dull reality we can experience here. Undoubtedly, sleeping drunkards are one of the critical elements of such a view, and I’ve come to appreciate the beauty in this everyday scene.
