A still life is a representation of people. Humans, in an abstract way, are present in the background.
Undoubtedly, my street photography is different than the classic one represented by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Garry Winogrand, or Helen Levitt. Why? Because street pictures of all mentioned above artists and many other street photographers focus on placing humans into the frame. My style is instead to present a still life that also represents people. How is it possible? A still life represents and tells us about the objects’ histories. That’s why we can imagine what other humans did with this particular street item. Things hide the peoples’ stories in themselves.
I would say that my style of street photography is more similar to Eugene Atget’s one.
Of course, Atget’s pictures also depict humans. Still, the truth is that a famous French photographer often showed only still life. I usually go to abandoned and empty places where the streets have no name and people are missing. For me, the safest place to take classic street photos in Warsaw is a tourist place – the Old Town, named “Starowka.” Many people are there, including tourists. No one pays attention to the man with a camera in his hand. In such tourist places, everyone is expected to take photos of everything. For me, this kind of photography is uncontroversial, secure, but dull. I can go there and wait for a famous “decisive moment” to take fantastic shots, but it is not something I desire in my passion.
The truth is that I prefer to go recluse places and try to find there a still life that can tell us something about humans’ stories. It is my way of doing street photography. I do not seek a stranger to take the photographs. Instead, I try to find still life to imagine and show some ambiguous and untold stories. This is how I do it. This is how I see it.
