Sometimes, when I see photos of ruined cities and buildings in Ukraine, I see my photos.
Did reality inspire itself by my photos? Of course, it did not. Unfortunately, there were many ruined cities in the past. In modern history, excluding the cities mentioned above in Ukraine, I see the destroyed Syrian Aleppo. Still, I saw many photographs of the destruction of my beloved city, the capital of Poland. It happened during World War II, during the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. During that time, Warsaw was destroyed in more than 85%. Still, it raised like the Phoenix from the ashes. Warsaw saw many horrible things during that time.
Nevertheless, sometimes, when I see my pictures, made before the Russian troops invaded Ukraine on the 24th of February, 2022 (although I know they made the first invasion in 2014), I think that if they were presented as a part of ruined cities, many people would agree with that suggestion.
I do not have to say that my artistic eye helps me show pieces of reality in the way they would show, e.g., human corpses. I heard a few times since I regularly do street photography on Warsaw’s street (it all started in October 2015) that my pictures show bodies of dead people or parts of them. When I heard that, I only smiled because I’d never seen a corpse. The truth is that everything you see on the www.adammazek.com website, my Dear Friend, is reality.
I believe reality is stranger than fiction.
The longer I live, the more I am amazed at what scenarios life can give to me and the whole society. Destroyed cities of Ukraine, Syria, or Poland during WWII only prove my theory. That’s why, for me, in reality, there is plenty of poetry and other realms. After all, what piece of reality inspired Wislawa Szymborska to write one of the best poems, “Conversation With A Stone?”
