The author of the photograph wrote thus: The primary function of my photos is to be more in a particular place. The secondary is to show others how I see a place with the hope that someone will find such a view interesting, or similar to their own.
The decision to publish photos from Ponidzie is not an easy one, as there are probably hundreds of photos taken there every day, many of which can easily be found online. What's more, it's been a long time since the most important things were told in black-and-white photos about Ponidzie and the surrounding area by photographers from Kielce. In particular, Jerzy Piatek has succeeded in doing so in his works that are devoid of any conformism. On the other hand, Ponidzie is my favorite place on Earth. This makes the photos sincere, even if they should be banal. I invite you to see a handful of silver images (as silver as scans can be) from this region. I hope they are not only photos from Ponidzie, but also at least a little about Ponidzie, and maybe something more.
So much from the author. Maciej Bonk has already been featured in "Quarterly Photography", specifically in the Portfolio section of the young. We then learned about him that he is a biologist and professionally involved in nature conservation, and that his passion is to capture on traditional light-sensitive emulsion photographic film those unusual and brief moments of nature's duration, during which we say it is photogenic. In the next batch of photographs he decided to share with us, we don't learn anything new about Maciej Bonk, because again we see that "the guy has an eye," although this time his photographs feature more than before "culture," that is, man-made reality.
Looking at these photographs, I feel as if I have returned to the 70s and 80s, that is, to the times of Edward Hartwig, Pawel Piercinski, Jurek Piątek and other photographers from the circle of the so-called Kielce School of Landscape. The development of photography, as you can see, runs sinuously, conventions, concepts, trends, fashions, experience their ups and downs, forgetfulness and reminders. Maciej Bonk reminds us of the pleasures of walking with a camera through forests, fields, hills and wilderness, in search of frames, of creative tension and concentration, of being with oneself and in... fresh air.
