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Szymon Szcześniak
Education:
Graduate of Institute for Creative Photography in Czech Opava, 2004.
Specialization:
Portrait photography.
Awards:
Winner of Grand Prix Pozytywu 2005 for the cycle Egypt, Chimery 2005 in category: magazines-photography and silver medal KTR (Klub Twórców Reklamy – Club of commercials' makers) for an original project 2007.
Activities outside Academy of Photography:
He cooperates with such magazines as: Viva!, Playboy, Zwierciadło, Gala, Twój Styl, Przekrój, Pani – focusing mainly on making portraits of celebrities.
A few words from me (about myself/my hobbies):
In private he is inspired by everyday life. Both in commercial and author's work he is under a strong influence of abstraction and surrealism of the surrounding world. Images, cut out of reality in a humoristic way, are an alternative to the common documentary view. Images emphasized by using a medium format camera, a flashgun and a specific color range are classified by the author as the so-called supported reality. I'm not afraid to ask someone to hunt, even if it would be a donkey. I'm trying not to interfere in peoples' lives, I ask them for permission if needed, if they say no I don't regret that. I don't want photography to make me tired and be something extorted. I intently observe and just in the last moment I'm taking the camera out. I'm not internally forced to take photographs, if everything comes about and I've got the camera with me, and there's nothing left except pressing the shutter, I do this. From the Czech school I have taken out great rudiments of a good document, but I have always been interested in pose portrait, I have been trying to connect in this photographs things I was taught with what I am. Abstraction in combination with seriousness of life gives pictures a distance and a bit of humor, without which I can't see myself as a photographer.