February 1, at 18:30 / exhibition until March 9, 2024 / ZPAF Gallery / zpafgallery, 24 św. Tomasza St., Krakow
AROUND ME
Ireneusz Misiak is a man who walks his own paths. On a daily basis, through his professional duties, he is definitely connected with elements of the modern world. But alongside these responsibilities he has a passion, which is photography, and a serious one at that.
In this area he refers to the classics of this medium.
What is needed to make a photograph is light and light-sensitive material. Misiak reaches for that material on which the image created by light is visibly recorded, that is, the film in the camera. After it is developed, the image is visible to the naked eye but in an inverted tonal scale. In the darkroom this image can be transferred, also by light from the enlarger, to photographic paper. A little more physical and chemical treatment in the cuvettes and we have a finished photograph. This sometimes rather lengthy process is the peculiar magic of photography, when on a white, clean sheet of paper, dipped in a transparent liquid, slowly appears what we saw with our own eyes some time ago, holding a camera in our hands. Not everyone enjoys this darkroom work. However, there are those for whom it allows moments of tranquility, and to focus in solitude on the experience that led to the recording, that which for a moment arrested the photographer's attention enough to lift the camera to his eye, look through the viewfinder and press the shutter button. Ireneusz Misiak likes this unhurried method of photography. She stems from what is his personal world, what arouses his interest. In today's flurry of "screaming" and fast successive images, especially those moved with a flick of a finger across a small screen, usually with intense colors, with subjects changing every now and then, flashing faces of celebrities, politicians, athletes, actors, acquaintances and strangers, accidents, protests and other dramas, what is important to each of us gets lost.
In this insanely fast-moving stream of visual information, the ordinary person and his most ordinary everyday life completely disappears. It's as if this individual experience of the world is completely absent. Should each of us be a celebrity? This is what pop culture persuades us to do, that everyone should play some noticeable role, even an extremely inappropriate or silly one, but so that we can be seen, to become, at least for a moment, a hero of the mass imagination. And when we have not been persuaded by pop culture then we are gone?
It is precisely these topics unnoticed by today's media that Irek Misiak has addressed. These ordinary people, with no need to shine, are, and perhaps most of them are. They don't push themselves to the front pages of newspapers, social networks or TV screens. They are, and they carry everyday life once with joy, other times without knowing it. Often together with someone else and when it doesn't work out, alone or with occasional encounters with acquaintances or chance encounters. Misiak's frames are a bit like private photography, meant only for his own. Because on them are ordinary events of everyday life but photographed in such a way that one wants to look at them. The author makes excellent use of the elements used to build a photographic image. His conscious action begins with the choice of camera, he sees the plasticity built by light and the arrangement of patches on the surface of the image, having a specific content, so that it constitutes, as a whole, an interesting game of visual elements that attract the eye of the beholder. He enhances the effect of the frame by using contrasts to emphasize certain themes and dimming those less important, and when necessary balances all the spots to emphasize the gentleness of the subject.
Irek Misiak's authorial vision is outside the mainstream, it does not touch on the most important problems of today. It focuses on very intimate, personal relations with the world. And not the big and today terribly complicated one, but one's own, which is a collection of daily experiences that must be carried individually, so that each day gives at least a trifle from the area of joy, like a ray of sunshine on a dark, cloudy day.
Andrew Zygmuntowicz
Ireneusz Misiak
Born in 1967, he graduated from the European Academy of Photography. Completed specialized photographic courses, in particular the course in noble techniques under Georgia Krawiec. Member of ZPAF since 2005. Since 2023 he has served as vice-president of the ZPAF Main Board.
For more than 20 years, he has presented photographic works in exhibitions at home and abroad. He creates classic silver prints. Artistic interests include creative photography drawing inspiration from everyday observations, reportage, portrait or landscape. Creates unique images in litho technique. He experiments with photo coloring and fine art techniques