On June 9, Jedrzej Paszak decided to leave on his own terms.
Jedrek's secular funeral (that's how his friends and acquaintances referred to him) took place on Wednesday, June 14 in Wągrowiec. Gathered at the grave were those closest to him from his childhood and youth in Wągrowiec, friends from the photography collectives "Świetlica" and "Ciemnica", acquaintances, there were also people with whom he worked and collaborated on various levels - professional, photography, ham radio, music and a few others, which were his passion and at the same time proof of existence. Above all, however, members of his closest family - his mother Irena, two sisters, his godfather - marked their presence at the cemetery in W wągrowiec.
The farewell ceremony began (played from a portable speaker) with a punk song with the leading phrase of the lyrics repeated like a punk mantra, "Get as far away from here as possible." At the end of this part there was a second piece of music from Jedrek's beloved punk-rock collection. Speaking over the grave were Jędrek's godfather, his younger sister's mother, and - on behalf of the photographers - Bogusław Biegowski. While the first piece of music that sounded in the cemetery chapel was kind of at least a surprise to most of the participants in the funeral ceremony, no one was probably surprised that the final musical touch, closing the moment the urn with the ashes was lowered into the grave, was a song by the band "Sedes" with another punk rebel tale:
I can't accomplish anything because someone is looking into my eyes
I can't do anything because someone is looking at my hands
Everywhere is full of people of people who want to make my life difficult
Each one of them maliciously stands in my way interferes with my life
We all repent for being alive
We all repent for being alive
I can't accomplish anything because someone is looking into my eyes
I can't do anything because someone is looking at my hands
Everywhere is full of people of people who want to make my life difficult
Each one of them maliciously stands in my way interferes with my life
We all repent for being alive
We all repent for being alive
We all repent for being alive
We all repent for being alive
We all repent for being alive
We all repent for being alive
We all repent for being alive
We all repent for being alive
We all repent
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And here is an excerpt from the laudation that was delivered at the cemetery during the farewell ceremony by Marcin Andruszko - Lay Master of Funeral Ceremonies:
Jedrzej Paszak, departing forever from our midst, was born in Wągrowiec. He lived and grew up with his sister Marta, in later years fate gave Jędrzej a second sister Veronica. It was here in Wągrowiec that he spent his childhood and made his first friendships. As a teenager, he moved with his family to Poznan, where he finished school and then graduated from the Department of Educational Studies at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan. He tied his professional life to Poznań, never forgetting where he came from. Wągrowiec has always been in his heart. He undertook various jobs, most recently as a social worker at the Municipal Family Assistance Center. He became known as a man dedicated and committed to his work. Through this he earned people's respect and gratitude. All those who came into contact with Jędrzej were able to recognize him as a man who was open and sensitive to the plight of others and always eager to help. All this made him well-liked and respected. Jedrzej was a man of many passions, to which he devoted his free time. He was into analog photography, especially loved old cameras, developed the photos himself and explored the art of photography with his friends from the Light and Darkroom. To his credit, Jedrzej had several exhibitions of his photographs. By passion, he was an avid darkroom mystic - self-taught. Monday's naive Orwographer - garbage photographer. This is what he wrote on his photo blog: "From the point of view of photography, the past is not infinite. Both from the point of view of the apparent excursions in time made by means of formal procedures, and the question of the permanence of the medium itself. Even the most fixed barytes will one day disappear."
In his spare time, he was involved in repairing old equipment, restoring it to its former glory. His skills were used by his friends, whom he helped by repairing their equipment. Music played in Jedrzej's heart, he loved Polish punk rock and everything that this music symbolizes. Punk was an important part of Jędrzej's life; he collected cassette tapes and enjoyed attending concerts, such as at the W wągrowie Rock Night. He was also passionate about computers. Both old and new. He was a valued member of the computer gaming community. He belonged to the online team Skrzydlata Husaria. At the end of May, he received his walkie-talkie credentials, the last passion he developed.
He shared his passions with his loved ones, and home and family were of special value to him. He was a loving son to his mother Irena, and was a loving brother to his sisters Marta and Veronica. There was also a place in Jedrzej's heart and under his roof, for those who complained without words. He liked animals, especially cats, which he treated as family members. He shared this love for animals with his loved ones. It would seem that there were still many interesting and good years ahead of Jedrzej, that he would still be able to enjoy his passions for a long time to come, that there were still many exhibitions ahead of him, that he would still listen to loud punk rock more than once in the company of his friends. He probably had many more plans, like any of us. However, fate thwarted those plans. Despite fighting to the end, today is the day we all have to come to terms with Jedrzejo's absence. The absence of a man we will miss greatly.
Since Jedrek is no longer with us, it may be worth taking a look at the only text discussing his life and work that was written during his artistic and craft photographic activity. I published it a few years ago in a volume of essays devoted to the issues and problems of photography titled "Photography. "Fotografioły 3". Here it is:
ORWOgraphs of childhood, or the sorcerer's apprentice
Lech Szymanowski wrote: As I have mentioned in the past, I avoid posting material related to my work on this blog, I do it only in special cases, when the undertaking, for various reasons, I consider important and unusual, when it overlaps with my private non-commercial photographic activity and carries a lot of positive emotions. Today, following the example of Krzysztof Szymoniak, using the method of GO AWAY, I want to bring out of the shadows Jedrek Paszak, a young man who still has a lot of enthusiasm for photography, and who began by learning and perfecting his craft. He pursues his intentions by basically moving against the tide, against common photographic fashions. He has a knack for making life difficult for himself in the name of certain principles, and is probably the only photographer I know who doesn't own a digital camera (even on his phone). This is an orthodoxy that I respect immensely, and therefore I intend to support similar photographers Whenever there is an opportunity to do so.[1]
[1] This entire excerpt and the following eight paragraphs come from Lech Szymanowski's blog. The blog is called Photodocument & pinhole. The quoted entry was made - April 12, 2013; I downloaded it - July 30, 2014.
A few months ago, I proposed to Jedrzej to prepare some color photos for an exhibition using the ORWOGRAPHY technique. As of a few days ago, I can say that the idea is close to finalization, and it will culminate in the following vernissage April 26, 2013. These will be pictures*) even more anti-aesthetic baffled than Krzysztof Szymoniak's photographs recently presented in the same gallery (this exhibition, in addition to Wągrowiec, was also exhibited in Gniezno, Bydgoszcz and Kalisz). Jedrzej Paszak to work on the exhibition, he used the ephemeral - seemingly no longer used by anyone - ORWO color technology and the Kodak RA-4 positive process, which he creatively modified and simplified for his own use. Color photographs from color films no longer in production ORWO, once very popular throughout the demolitions, had a special charm. They were made of different dye components than the currently produced films for the hot E-6 and C-41 processes, so they cannot be developed in these processes. They must be developed in a special dedicated process ORWOCOLOR.
Residents Suicide City will easily locate the places where the individual frames were taken, but thanks to interesting technological procedures, the final effect that Jędrek managed to achieve is extremely intriguing. Although the photos were taken contemporaneously (2012-2013), it seems to us that they come from the late 1980s and early 1990s.
The photos are an experimental return to the childhood of the 1990s, a retrospective journey between memories. Human memory is unreliable, everything blurs and fades like old prints. They are an attempt to photographically reproduce what we remember more and more faintly. They are also intended to draw attention to the environment of contemporary children and to answer the question: has much changed over a dozen years? - Jedrzej wrote to me.
In the following paintings we can see the city of the author's childhood without the help of a time machine, confronting the photos with real places and objects. Looking, we realize that, in fact, since the last decades of the 20th century here, time has stood still. The impression is heightened by the peculiar aesthetics or rather anti-aesthetics of these photos - yellow dominant, deep blacks, out-of-focus, dislocated verticals. Jędrek's images could be a school example of a subjective document with a nostalgic tinge. In the original photos from 30 years ago and the then very popular ORWO slides, which many of us have in our archives, the colors have faded, the image is no longer very clear, and often has disappeared completely. Like memories they blur and their hierarchy changes. Some fade and retire to the deep regions of the subconscious, others mellow, become idealized, others become sharpened, and still others, the traumatic ones, are erased from the disk that is our mind. In the same way, the memory of East Germany (DDR), the now-defunct totalitarian German state that produced a wide range of photographic materials that are still prized and sought after at online auctions by multitudes of experimental photographers, is being erased.
Even after writing the previous paragraph, I took a look at the Jedrek's blog (Photo amateurism) and I found these words: "The 1990s were a strange, albeit carefree, time for me. Early childhood in Wągrowiec. Back then, one didn't think much about life, didn't pay much attention to one's surroundings and what was happening around, although there was a lot going on. By the force of things, there were issues that did not evade even the kids (…) Everything seemed idyllic, and the town itself a promised land. As the years pass, a person acquires a certain distance to everything, remembers everything completely differently... or forgets. Memories blur and fade like old color prints from vacations or a school trip to Ciechocinek. Years later I found that I would not want to fund my kids such a childhood. Not here, because I have a very strange feeling that not much has changed here except the facade.". Interesting synchronicity, isn't it?
Jedrek Paszak is only at the beginning of his photographic journey, and he started it the right way - first he undertook strenuous work to perfectly master analog techniques and technologies, he began by struggling with their matter. He was fortunate that he immediately came across good teachers in the Photo Collective SLIGHTA. There he managed to "catch a share" in the realization of the last important projects of the Photo Collective, and quickly became one of the most active members of the group. In a short period of time he perfectly mastered the analog black-and-white process and pinhole photography, and now he is exploring and modifying color processes achieving better and better results. The next step should be so-called conscious photography. I hope that there are many important photographic projects ahead of him, with which he will surprise us more than once.
Preparing the materials for the exhibition, the author thought for a long time about an adequate title, and finally decided on the title Orwographies from childhoodalthough the set was originally going to be called Non-Postcards/Anti-Postcards , but similar titles have already had several exhibitions, so he would not want to imitate others with the Non-postcards from childhood.
As for information on the photos themselves - Jedrzej wrote to me -. Well, it's hard for me to write about my photography and explain why I photograph exactly this and why it looks the way it does. I photograph on feeling, instinctively. The viewer either feels what I feel, or just doesn't buy it. Or everyone sees something different. And that can sometimes be cool. I think the following description is enough. There's no point in writing an elaboration and giving the potential viewer (but maybe someone will want to see it and won't leave after seeing the first frame) everything on a platter.
So much for Lech Szymanowski about his younger colleague. For the sake of accuracy, let us recall that Jedrzej Paszak was born in 1987 in Wągrowiec, graduated from rehabilitation studies at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, and considers himself a resident of Debiec in Poznań. He has been involved in photography for 6 years, although he has been drawn to "stopping time" since childhood. Already as a five-year-old he used to sneak his father's Praktica to play at being a photographer. He is an active member of the Photographic Collective "Świetlica" and the Author of the interesting blog FOTOAMATORSZCZYZNA. Now let's take a look...
Jedrzej Paszak, reading what Lech Szymanowski said on his blog about him and his path as an analog photographer, made this simple remark in his commentary on the statement: It was probably inappropriate for you to write this, but in addition to the Day Care Center, I owe a great deal to the MCC in W wągrowiec and people closely associated with the place. This minor, but very important for Paszak correction, or rather addition, makes us assume that for some reason the author of "ORWOgraphy from childhood" does not intend to keep silent about the fact that he belonged to the environment of the Wągrowie MDK. What was so important - let's ask at once - that environment gave him? Who turned out to be the people he met there, who must have had some kind of positive influence not only on the photographic sphere of his life?
Reading attentively L. Szymanowski's blog text about Paszak, in which Paszak himself adds to his story with quotes from his own blog, it is hard to resist the impression that everything important in this story happens behind a curtain of words, and that a return to the land of childhood is possible (also in the sense of overcoming some trauma about which we know nothing) only through photography realized (from the negative to the color print) by methods available at the time. The author of ORWOgraphy, in order to make this journey back in time, first had to learn the secrets of chemical processes, master working with equipment and materials of the period, which resembles the journey of a sorcerer's apprentice to his own creative independence. And this sorcerer for many adepts of analog photography over the years was Boguś Biegowski. The role of Lech Szymanowski can be seen in a similar way, which is probably where the comment just quoted came from. Lech, an instructor of photography and film from the MDK in Wągrowiec, not only teaches photographic magic to those who want to learn it, but also practices constantly himself in a field that for Jędrek Paszak may have turned out to be (at the time he found himself between people closely associated with the place) a lifeline or a gateway to a secret garden. Or both. These are pure guesses, of course, but that's the way it is with photography, that it often tells us what we can't see on it, and what, as I mentioned here, is hidden behind a curtain of words. This time (which is a fortunate deviation from the norm) the curtain of words has lifted a bit with the sorcerer's apprentice, but that still doesn't make me any less helpless to try to explore the non-technological (and therefore psychological) layer of the images in the ORWOgraphs of Childhood series. These frames were certainly created thanks to the technique and technology that existed during Paszak's childhood, they certainly show, viewed today, that world, in which the time of artifacts and space seems to have stopped in the galaxy of Wągrowiec, but there is no more certainty about the trauma and nostalgia hidden in these images from the viewer's eye. And it doesn't change anything that the viewer-viewer (any me-too viewer) perceives exactly what Paszak photographed, chemically processed and then fixed on pieces of photosensitive paper, because he probably photographed something else that isn't in these pictures.
How, then, can one deal with the disturbing matter of images of a backwater town, which was first for Paszak a land of strange carefree, and then became a place where he himself, now grown up and liberated, wouldn't want to fund his kids such a childhood? I'm afraid you can't deal with it, and that means you can't take it apart, you can't decode it to the bottom, to pure emotions and motivations. In any case, the photographs in the series in question do not provide such an opportunity, and their author does not facilitate anything for us. At most, he writes on the blog: I photograph on feeling, instinctively. The viewer either feels what I feel, or just doesn't buy it. Or everyone sees things differently. There is no point in writing an elaboration and giving the potential viewer everything on a platter. So? So, one can try to answer the question: what is Paszak looking for in photography, what does he want to tell us about himself with his works?
The only meaningful attempt to explore this issue is through Jedrek Paszak's blog[1], where he writes about himself briefly and succinctly: Born in Wągrowiec, residing in Poznań for several years. A would-be historian, a graduate of the Faculty of Educational Studies at UAM, a passionate darkroom mystic-self-taught. Monday's naive Orwographer-turned-junkie.. There is also a credo of sorts: My buoys, mostly in black and white, made with anything I could get my hands on using analogue technique and the eternal makeshift. I have known Jedrek long enough to believe without preconditions what he says about himself. I know that he does not dim, does not promote himself, does not add obscure ideology to obvious matters. He is a straightforward and good-hearted boy, humble and sincerely dedicated to the cause. From the last moment... In June 2014, a well-known photographer from Poznan, Antoni Rut, visited the MDK Gallery in W wągrowiec. A conversation ensued at the time, during which Mr. Antoni confided in Lech Szymanowski that he had quite a lot of darkroom antiquities, with which some talented analog experimenter could successfully work to the greater glory of traditional photography. It ended up that a cardboard box with these "oldiesˮ (they included, for example, Foton's glass negative plates, which had expired in 1965!) ended up in Lech Szymanowski's instructor's studio. Some of the glass negatives, whose sensitivity today probably does not exceed 1 DIN, were just given to Jędrek Paszak. I'm posting the effects of his work with these materials next, along with his blog entries, which he titled Best before 1965, Best before 1965 - II, Best before 1965 - III.. I illustrate these entries with two (of the three that existed on the day of editing this text, i.e. July 30, 2014) portraits, which, I think, not badly punctuate the story of the author of "ORWOgraphy of childhood."
[1] http://photoamatorszczyzna.blogspot.com/
Best before 1965 (July 20). A scan of the contact sheet on Fomaspeed paper. 9×12 Foton GO 3.0 image plate with a shelf life of 1965. Foton N-9 developer with 12.5g of Kbr (17.5g total) per liter. It's hard for me to expose 1 ASA / 1 DIN sensitivity with my equipment, but at least I have a chance to brush up on my open flash technique. The donated material (thank you L.S.) obliges me to take pictures on it. I associate glass plate (i.e., real film) exclusively with portraiture, so I decided to cross over. Portraying people is even fun, I think they enjoy it even more than I do. They'll probably enjoy the prints on baryta, too. Just need to buy it when ordering emulsion. It's also good to know that I have a glassblower near my house. P.S. If anyone has an unwanted tripod to support their head, I would be happy to take it in, buy it back on installment or borrow it for a long time.
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Best before 1965 - II (July 24). A brushstick, a couple of plumbing fittings, a flag holder, a sponge to wash the goodies... and there's a headstand. Less than an hour's work. I noticed that extremely smoky materials at some point simply stop reacting to bromide. I used to read a little about this, but only the day before yesterday I saw it in practice. Bumping it up to 20 grams only caused a significant drop in sensitivity while contrast increased. 15-17.5 grams is probably the golden mean. What to do, at 5 or 10 grams the image does not even appear. Other than that, it's a waste of material to experiment, I'm satisfied with this form. Random stains or defects in the emulsion, such as holes, reticulation or its local run-off give me a similar experience to collodion. Each photo lives a life of its own (that's why it's worth practicing photography in its material form), and the lottery that accompanies each shot makes the effect unrepeatable. If everything was on one copy, it would just be boring. It's fun to have fun while creating something. I don't think I can squeeze more out of it. After all, it's graphic material, stripped of most halftones. Instead of halftones, I have a pretty nice mushroom on a couple of plates. I wonder how old it is?
Best before 1965 - III (July 28). A scan of a 9×12 contact print, Fomabrom. Getting to the knack, that is Arek. Stopped by to develop a slide, came home with a portrait. Giving up the black sheet was a good move. With a lighter background, the portrait subjects' hair doesn't blend in with the surroundings, and all the interesting "shine" the plates offer comes out. Klawo. "Swimming against the tide makes a lot of muscle". - Z.Herbert. A Foton not dead.
When I called Lech Szymanowski at the end of my work on this text to detail some information related to Jędrek Paszak, I did not know that the latter had never been a student of the former. A few hours later the matter clarified itself, as Lechu wrote me a short email: I thought to myself that you can not write as if Jedrek was my student, because he is not and was not. He started out on his own, and was shaped by the "Shining Room". I only advised him to find them in Poznan and gave him a lead on Bogus B. and "Meskal", where "Swietlica" met at the time. Basically, that's it. Only so much and so much. At this point, it is only necessary to mention that Boguś Biegowski was the main ideologue and animator of the activities of the Photo Collective "Świetlica". You can read more, much more on this subject in the first and second volumes of my "Fotografiolos". And Jedrek Paszak? This boy amazes and fascinates me. He is, in my opinion, a self-made talent who, thanks to photography and his persistence in exploring its secrets, has left the boundless expanses of barren loneliness. The same loneliness that an analog photographer indulges in the darkroom, however, is already something else, something that does not shatter the heart, does not incinerate the soul, does not invalidate the individual fate in a crowd of anonymous singles. His "ORWOgraphs from childhood" triggered in me similar emotions with which Boguś Biegowski had earlier endowed me with his "Zielnik pilski", and what Jędrek Paszak is able to squeeze out of glass negative plates 50 years out of date, i.e. these unusually beautiful portraits, also in climate and aesthetics remind me of portraits on wet collodion, which Boguś Biegowski conjured up in front of the audience in Konin a few years ago. So the sorcerer's apprentice after all....
Jedrzej Paszak born in 1987 in Wągrowiec, studied and graduated from re-socialization at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, considered himself a resident of Dębec in Poznań. He has been involved in photography since 2008, and was an active member of the "Świetlica" Photographic Collective. Author of the interesting blog FOTOAMATORSHIP. He was passionate about Polish punk-rock, old amplifiers and radio equipment, collected and built analog cameras. A few weeks before his death, he earned his ham radio license at the Club in Poznan's Wilda district.
