POST SCRIPTUM English__ Feb 2021

The picture is born in ahead. It needs to be created,
felt, and composed. A child from kindergarten can
click the button. How are your photos created?
Do you see them before they come into being?
I agree. It doesn’t discredit digital photography, but
for me, processing a large number of photos, making
countless decisions in the post-production stage, is an
endless struggle with oneself. Traditional photography
forces a different approach, forces thoughtful shots at
the stage of creating a photo and limits the number
of photos taken. To explain my approach to working
on a photo closer, I put that in stages:
The first stage is the search for aesthetic experiences,
inspirational motifs previously imagined or already
existing somewhere. Most often it is a forest, river,
meadow, trees, branches or an industrial constituent,
a search for a background to take a photo of a person.
The second stage is looking through the camera’s
matte matrix (the matte matrix is frosted glass: 16 x21,
5 cm or, for example, 18x24cm. The opaque coating
allows you to view the image. To set the focus we
often use magnifying glasses with x10 magnification
search for composition, selecting elements and their
proportions, and placing the subject among them.
You need to assess the need for perspective correction
(required in architecture photography) or purposefully
changing perspective and focus if this is the desired
result. Using a wide-format camera is very interesting
since the picture of reality captured on the focusing
screen is “upside-down” and it’s a mirror image of
the world and it’s incredibly beautiful. This image for
me is subjectively final. To capture it, I record it on
a light-sensitive material, collodion plate, as due to
its specificity, brings me closest to the original image
viewed on the focusing screen.
The next stage is the preparation of light-sensitive
material in a manual chemical process (it takes place
in a portable photo lab, most often it is a special tent).
Accompanied by the smell of ether, I pour iodized
Helium over the transparent glass followed by a bath
of silver nitrate. After 3-4 minutes, the emulsion
becomes light-sensitive, and you can put the plate
in the cartridge.
The last stage involves exposing the image: waiting
or the right moment, the soft light falling at the set
and the model (often it all changes mischievously,
when I arrive with the sensitized plate at the set)
correcting the position of the person’s body, their gaze
and getting the focus right before manually opening
and closing the lens, measuring passing seconds out
loud.
The next magical stage of the image preserving
process pojawiam can się also z uczuloną involve the kasetą person na observing planie), skorygowaniu
the
slow
ułożenia
disclosure
ciała fotografowanej
of her image in
osoby
the photo.
i jej spojrzenia
This is
oraz
emotional. It takes from 30 minutes to 1 hour to
produce
ustawieniu
a single
ostrości,
image.
a następnie
Each time,
na
the
manualnym
end result
otwarciu
is
burdened i zamknięciu by some obiektywu, degree mierząc of the unknown. sekundy na When głos.
it Emulsja is disappointing, kolodionowa you jest need bardzo to repeat mało the światłoczuła, shot. The
resulting co w efekcie effect powoduje is influenced długi by czas both naświetlania the work of - the od
photographer, kliku do kilkunastu the model, sekund. the Najdłuższy weather conditions, czas, w jakim
and chemical processes that occur during the
wykonałam zdjęcie z modelem, to 5 min 30 sek. Od
whole process. In that way, the implementation
of momentu the project włożenia acquires płyty a subjectively do kasety nieubłaganie multiplied biegnie
artistic czas, który value oddala as well możliwość as personal wywołania and emotional obrazu utajonego.
W zależności since od each temperatury photo is otoczenia, a one-off, jest to od 10
consequences,
impossible min do maksymalnie to repeat. This 20-30 is what min. attracted me to
this
W kolejnym
technique
magicznym
as well as the
procesie
fact that
utrwalenia
it is an instant
może
process.
uczestniczyć również fotografowana osoba, obserwując
I powolne have this ujawnianie idea in my się head: jej wizerunku a project named:
zdjęciu,
“Poland a towarzyszą in one temu picture”. emocje. To show Na wykonanie Polishness jednego
in zdjęcia just one należy frame. poświęcić Would od it be 30 a min religious do 1 godziny.
procession?
Rezultat końcowy,
Session
za
in
każdym
the parliament?
razem obarczony
Maybe
jest
a
demonstration? The picture is not clear yet. What
would
pewną
you
dozą
see
niewiadomej.
in a photo like
Kiedy
that?
jest on niezadawalający,
trzeba powtórzyć zdjęcie. Na uzyskany efekt składają się
I bowiem don’t think zarówno I could działania show such fotografa, an extremely fotografowanej diverse
society osoby, in warunki the 1st termiczne, photo. It’s jak an interesting i procesy chemiczne question
– it would be a challenge, but rather for a carefully
zachodzące w jego trakcie. Realizacja projektu zyskuje
thought through series. There are too many black
and w ten white sposób aspects subiektywnie to clearly define zwielokrotnioną who we are. wartość
artystyczną oraz implikacje osobiste i emocjonalne, gdyż
każde zdjęcie jest jednostkowe, niemożliwe do powtórzenia.
To właśnie ujęło mnie przy wyborze tej techniki oraz
to, że jest to proces natychmiastowy.
Kiedyś myślałem o takim projekcie: “Polska w jednym
zdjęciu”. Pokazać polskość w jednym kadrze. Czy byłaby
to religijna procesja? Obrady w Sejmie? A może jakaś
demonstracja? Jeszcze się ze sobą wewnętrznie nie
pogodziłem. Co Ty widziałabyś na takim zdjęciu?
Chyba nie umiałabym w 1 zdjęciu pokazać tak zróżnicowanego
skrajnie społeczeństwa.
Ciekawe pytanie-wyzwanie, ale raczej na przemyślaną
serię. Jest zbyt wiele aspektów, czarno-białych, by jednoznacznie
określić jacy jesteśmy.
The collodion emulsion is very little light-sensitive,
which leads to a long irradiation time from a few
to a dozen seconds. The longest time it took me to
take a photo with a model is 5 min 30 sec. Time runs
inexorably from the moment the plate is inserted into
the cassette, which delays the possibility of conjuring
the hidden image. Depending on the temperature, it
takes from 10 minutes to a maximum 20-30 minutes.
86 POST SCRIPTUM
Faint breath of the wind, Model Yulia, Chorwackie plenery