Stanisław Niedźwiecki – Poland Stanisław Niedźwiecki was born on May 23, 1890, in Shaykuny, a place on the border of present-day Belarus and Lithuania, which was then part of the Russian Empire. In the years before World War I, he studied anthropology and ethnography at the University of St. Petersburg, while after the Communist Revolution of 1917 he found himself in Transcaucasia. During this time, he also began to dabble in photography, which eventually became his profession when he stayed in Persia from around 1921 to 1935 and found employment there as a photographer for English and American archaeological expeditions. At that time he maintained correspondence contact with Polish photographic magazines (Miesięcznik Fotograficzny, Fotograf Polski), to which he sent photographs and texts on the technique and aesthetics of photography. At the beginning of 1936, he returned to his hometown, then already within the borders of independent Poland, taking photographs along the way in the Middle East, Greece and Turkey. Back home, he joined the “native photography” movement, which was initiated by Jan Bulhak, who lived in Vilnius. The consequences of World War II made Jelenia Gora his next place of residence from 1945. For 10 years there, he ran a studio of sightseeing and art photography at the Youth House of Culture, and independently traveled with his camera, often by bicycle, both in the surrounding Sudetenland and throughout Poland until the end of his life. He was a popular figure in the Jelenia Góra community, and enjoyed high prestige in...

Instagra Traveling means being on the road. This knowledge is even more ingrained in our minds since the pandemic was announced: Traveling has an existential meaning. Marcin Andrzejewski’s photographic journey takes up this theme in a unique way and takes us to places that are important to him from the point of view of cultural history or subjective experience. I look at these photos I have the urge to immediately share with my fellow travelers – which is life – not only what I see but ask them if this is a joke or a provocation? Nevertheless, with the point of view – personal – it is difficult to discuss, it gives us that something unique – Own sensitivity. We gain a lot, because in addition to the world of ideas, the viewpoints, experiences and biographies of other travelers, in our case also the photographer, are very inspiring – which intensifies the role of the image.Marcin creates beautiful photographic projects, documenting Africa the last few years is looking out for the end of restrictions and opening the way to continue the wonderful black and white photography in wet collodion technique.Traveling is not only in the field. The other same place is our own head. After all, it’s the memories we store in ourselves.Memory embraces not only the visible, but perhaps most importantly, what is hidden and arising from encounters with people encountered on the road. Marcin Andrzejewski’s new exhibition is a reach for new technologies both in the area of...

GTF – Collodion Portraits  The wet collodion technique, invented in 1851 by English sculptor Frederik Scott Archer, also known as wet plate collodion, is one of the first photographic techniques invented and the first technique to produce a glass negative that could be easily duplicated (which contributed to the popularization of photography in the 19th century). This method, compared to other photographic techniques, is unique – each photograph is subjected to individual processing, it is characterized by a unique plasticity of the image. It is a technique used mainly in portrait photography, but often also in landscape photography.In this process, the photographer independently, by hand, prepares the light-sensitive material: a glass plate or other substrate (e.g. A glass plate or other substrate (e.g., blackened iron plate, black Plexiglas) after thorough cleaning (we use surface-active or absorption methods here, or both) is coated with iodinated collodion (a mixture of collodion cotton with alcohol and ether and iodine salts), and after the top layer of collodion is concentrated, the plate is immersed in a solution of silver nitrate, as a result of which the collodion layer is sensitized. The plate, prepared in this way, should be placed in a large-format camera and an image taken.Unlike popular photographic materials, in wet collodion, the development of the photo is done by pouring the developer solution over the plate while holding the plate in your hand.Pour the developer along the edge (so that the stream does not push the delicate emulsion in the center) and...

1120km, Gambia River Today, April 1, 2019, a plethora of travel photographs have been taken, with the day being no different from any other during the year in this regard. These photos will flood social media, some of them will die forever on computer disks, and others will be published in travel magazines after careful editing. And until about 167 years ago, travel photography was so difficult and required so much knowledge and patience that it was rare. Difficult to imagine from the point of view of today’s globetrotter.There was an incredible delight in showing the foreign world by photographers who toured exotic countries with the new technology invented and developed by Frederick Scott Archer in the 1850s. The hunger for images from this part of the world led to an increase in the frequency of middle-class trips to African countries. High temperatures were not a hindrance; the first photographers bravely traveled along the Nile by ship, with their own darkroom and sometimes a hen, used to obtain protein for albumen prints.Marcin Andrzejewski also had to contend with high temperatures and hard-to-reach places, traveling along the Gambia River. Nowadays, technology is so developed that some of the hardships of the first travelers-photographers manage to offset. But then as now, travel is all about meeting people, talking to them, watching what they do. The places where the locals live are profoundly different to us, and this has invariably interested generations of photographers who wonder how to depict what they see and...

Hell’s Kitchen “Hell’s Kitchen” is, it would seem, a rather unobvious name for a photographic exhibition. However, just after crossing the threshold of Marcin Andrzejewski’s atelier, one of the basic attributes of the kitchen hits our nostrils: a bouquet of intense smells. However, this is not the scent of prepared food, but a mixture of alcohol, ether and other chemicals that are unidentifiable to the untrained nose. After a while, we get used to the diabolical smell and begin to absorb with our eyes the vegetables and fruits – the silent protagonists of the exhibition. Personification is not incidental here – what is usually considered food, here transforms into theatrical actors in new roles of models. We see their diversity, the dynamics of their structure mimicry, and when juxtaposed on stage, they show a new perspective on the kitchen, while spreading the perspective of tasty dishes. Cooking and Photography,” says Andrzejewski, ”are my life. And it is the passion for finding a common denominator for both that is felt most strongly in the set of images we see in “Devil’s Kitchen.”The distinctive blend of scents accompanying the exhibition is no coincidence. It is directly related to ambrotype, the technique used to create these gourmet paintings. It has been used since the 1850s, but few photographers use it today. The technique requires discipline, patience and a lot of work, but the creation process itself is extremely fascinating. First, a layer of collodion is applied to a glass plate cut to final...

Shangri La Referring to the modern metropolis as Shangri-La, Marcin Andrzejewski provokes. He encourages the rejection of the mundane meanings that abound in the everyday hustle and bustle of the concrete beast. Shangri-La literarily represents a world that does not exist. A land of harmony and wisdom that we so desperately need. If art were to mean nothing but the emotions released, the land of the imagination would remain an intimate space of understanding with the viewer. We understand it, each individually, with the ability to experience life, but the overriding feature is that the wanderer crossing the borders of the land of Shangri-La, was forbidden to leave it. This is the provocation – the superiority of image over literature, and over the fleeting life. Whoever gets a taste of photography will not have the slightest need to leave this magical land.Cezary Tymczuk...

Roadsides scenes II  … reality is a matter of energy. Energy flowing between “us”. The phenomenon of photography is the energy of light reflected from the “object” and falling “on the photographer” – a human individual, living, from the point of view of the cosmos, a fraction of a second and sensitive to the world around him. The photographs in this exhibition are a photochemical, aesthetic response to this “impact” of reality. Empty buildings, decaying farm barns, proving the existence of another time. The shriveled tree branches, abandoned by the leaves of last autumn, which, like a theatrical set, cover the wall of the old building. Perception of reality “from the side” – in a split second – the purpose of photography. What becomes important is the IMAGE. Authentic, existing regardless of the moment of its disclosure. Jakgy not remembering that the reason for its creation was about a specific place and time. As if the objectively existing reality was irrelevant. It did not last forever. Photographs do not seem to hold objects “towards eternity”. They do not take “ownership” of them. They let their existence flow freely between perception and registration. Photography seems to leave them in their places, as if they could die peacefully in their own “real” world, without leaving a trace. And this, perhaps, is what makes these photographs special… After all, to see does not always mean to stop…. These are crumbling old warehouses, a chapel forgotten by people hidden somewhere in the woods. But...

Stanisław Niedźwiecki – Persja  The photographic archive of Stanisław Niedźwiecki, who died in 1976, has recently become the subject of interest of photography enthusiasts, which led to an exhibition in Jelenia Góra, and may stimulate further research into his output. Niedźwiecki (his surname is sometimes incorrectly given as Niedźwiedzki) came from Wieluń, after World War I he photographed in Persia, and after World War II in the vicinity of Jelenia Góra, where he settled. After his death, the fate of these photographs concerned only his colleagues from the Jelenia Góra Photographic Society, who donated some of the pre-war prints to the National Museum in Wrocław, and the rest (negatives and prints) were entrusted to Witold Niedźwiedzki, a journalist friend of the author, who later moved to Gorzów Wielkopolski. In 1992, he handed over these photographs to the city authorities, who in turn entrusted them to the care of the Gorzów Photographic Society. There are 56 original prints and about 120 negatives, glass (9×12 and 13×18 cm.) and celluloid, from the period before World War II. To this must be added 121 original prints of various formats, which are located in Wrocław, and an undetermined number of negatives and photographs that may have remained in private hands (especially from the post-war period). Two years ago, a hundred of Stanisław Niedźwiecki’s negatives from the time of his stay in Persia were copied by Marcin Andrzejewski, associated with GTF, a graduate of the Higher School of Photography in Jelenia Góra, currently also a...

Roadsides scenes Roadside Scenes – a metaphorical title associated primarily with observation while traveling. Observation, in turn, irrevocably constitutes an element of photography. Five travelers – wanderers, going on a journey into the unknown. Looking around, they reje-structure everything that seems interesting to them. Landscapes, people, situations. The peculiar innocence of registration has its own, tremendous advantages. Its feature is the purity of the photographic image. In turn, the presence of all manifestations of life and nature can be evidence of a comprehensive understanding of reality. After all, in our lives people, things and events are often subject to mutual intermingling. We are not always able and, more importantly, do not always want to sublimate individual areas that emotionally combine for us into some kind of whole, sometimes in completely surprising ways. And that is why we should treat this way of perceiving the chaos of the world with complete understanding, as it is identical to the temperament inherent in people embarking on their photographic journey, which, I have no doubt, will lead them through the most fascinating corners of the world of photography. Wojciech Zawadzki...