Often, during my photo walks, I think about people who surround me right here, right now. For me, both making photographs and writing reflections are hard-to-explain urban poetry.
While seeing passers-by, I try to “read” from their faces. I often try to imagine whether they are happy or if they have a lot of issues on their minds. I try to visualize how they live, where do they work, or how they spend their leisure time. Moreover, I often try to imagine if those passers-by possess someone who loves them, or if they have someone to hug.
What’s most interesting, when I was young, other strangers did not interest me at all.
I started to think about others after reading almost all the translated into Polish language Fyodor Dostoyevski’s books. When I did that, I realized that the most important thing we should implement in our life is taking care of others. Of course, I do not mean to take care of the whole world. What I mean is that we should try to give to our loved ones, our family and friends, eventually, society as a whole all the best we can offer to them. I believe that all our doings should bring a lot of added value firstly for others, and only later to ourselves.
Art is the perfect tool to show what I mean. I discovered this tool for myself to express my many feelings and thoughts.
Today, I know that art and photography helped me to cope with many issues. What do I mean exactly? I will come back to this issue in the future. Today, I will mention that this issue is a very personal and essential thing that happened in my life. Back to the art, I believe that art possesses healing powers for our souls, hearts, and minds. Novels, poems, music, paintings, drawings, photography, graffiti, dancing, and so on, all these things can make people’s souls reborn.
That is why, when I am wandering through the streets of Warsaw, and when I see strangers, I do not blame myself that I am trying to steal something from them.
By stealing, I understand making photographs of their surroundings. It’s entirely the opposite: in fact, I want to give them all the respect which they deserve, by presenting their neighborhood to the rest of the world. I want to immortalize the citizens, by making minimalistic pictures, paradoxically often without the people. For me, both making photographs on the streets and writing my reflections regarding many things are somehow urban poetry.
