In today’s post (I wrote it on the 31st of August, 2025), I will try to explain why I do not want to be a famous artist.
I do not want to be a renowned artist, because I feel that recognition would somehow shift my identity. Also, fame would not help me walk through Warsaw’s streets and explore the surrounding world. It is the creative process of exploration I enjoy the most, not the reward that counts. I have written many times that I cannot imagine living without street photography. It’s been almost ten years since I started doing this tremendous activity (I started doing it in October 2015). I know it can sound ridiculous. Still. I really do not aim to be famous or earn money from my passion.
I do not know what is trending on Instagram.
I have no idea about the best street photographers who are my age. I do not care what type of photography I should do to win a contest on the LensCulture website. It is the process I enjoy that counts. I feel that if I were to become famous, my identity and way of doing all my creative things would shift drastically.
Moreover, I feel it would not be the same art as you can see and read now, my Dear Friend.
I do not imagine myself being one of the most famous artists. I imagined myself being artistically productive until my final days. After my death, someone (Taschen publishing house?) would bring all my pictures, texts, and works of art together and publish them as an enormous book. Still, I know I must be creatively productive not only during the next ten years, but during the next fifty years (I wrote this text while being forty years old). That’s how I imagine fame. I do not want to be part of it.
