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Tekst
Marcin Morawicki is a photographer, camera operator and director. He is a graduate of the Institute of Creative Photography in Opava in the Czech Republic and of the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts, where he studied media art. A winner of the Panavision Award in the Papaya Young Directors Competition, he has also been recognised with the Canon New Cosmos of Photography and the Fujifilm Merit Awards. His work has been seen at numerous Polish and international exhibitions and festivals, including the Pff Festival in Bratislava, BWA Zielona Góra, Kraków’s MOCAK and Nowy Teatr in Warsaw. www.marcinmorawicki.com
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Podpis obrazka
photo: Michalina Morawicka, Marcin Morawicki
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Question
Michał Dąbrowski (MD): Who made these photos?
Odpowiedź
Marcin Morawski (MM): It’s really Misia who makes them, because she’s the one who actually pushes the shutter button. I think up the settings and stage them, because she’s still a bit too young for that – although she does say to me sometimes: ‘let’s take a picture’. When it’s me who suggests that, she’s usually perfectly willing, although there are times when I set everything up and she disagrees with it. Recently, when we took this photo with the fire, she had her finger on the shutter button, but then she said she didn’t want the photos anymore. She had herself convinced. It’s great that she’s the one who takes them. Actually, that’s the best thing about them.
Podpis obrazka
photo: Michalina Morawicka, Marcin Morawicki
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MD: Did the idea of family self-portraits come about during the pandemic?
Odpowiedź
MM: My partner Ania and I take a lot of family photos. We’re both trained photographers. For some time, I’d been looking for a way to appear in the photos myself. I had tried various ways to do this before, but I was never happy with how the photos of all of us as a family came out. It was only really justified when we wanted to celebrate something together.
Podpis obrazka
photo: Michalina Morawicka, Marcin Morawicki
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Question
MD: Why weren’t you happy with them?
Odpowiedź
MM: It was mostly the excessive posing, the artificiality. Maybe we’re lousy subjects, or maybe the lockdown situation was weighing on me. With this series, I wanted us to be together and to spend time together. I also wanted to get my daughter interested in photography.
Simple Gallery Items
Podpis obrazka
photo: Michalina Morawicka, Marcin Morawicki
Podpis obrazka
photo: Michalina Morawicka, Marcin Morawicki
Podpis obrazka
photo: Michalina Morawicka, Marcin Morawicki
Podpis obrazka
photo: Michalina Morawicka, Marcin Morawicki
Question
MD: Did the pandemic speed up the project’s realisation?
Odpowiedź
MM: I think so. The first month of the lockdown was great. From 3rd March, I was spending most of my time at home, but we weren’t sending Misia to kindergarten. That day, I was working on my last commission from before the lockdown.
I mainly work in advertising, as a camera operator, and more recently as a director and operator. I’ve been trying to develop my skills in this area – I even took ‘Conscious Speaker’ acting classes for six months, with the actor-director Julian Dzienkiewicz. At some point, everything started coming together somehow – the idea for the photos, the idea of me appearing in front of the camera and, of course, the lockdown.
I’m sorry I’m speaking so softly, but Misia just fell asleep.
Podpis obrazka
photo: Michalina Morawicka, Marcin Morawicki
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MD: How did the first photos come about?
Odpowiedź
MM: During the lockdown, we got on a strict routine: we woke up at the same time every day; we had breakfast at the same time every day. Having such a young child, it’s easier to function that way, so that everything is regulated for them like clockwork. We were going for walks in the morning and in the afternoon so that Ania could have some time to herself. At the beginning, the parks weren’t closed – that’s when we took a photo of Misia sitting on a log and pointing at something with her finger. That was actually the first real photo from this set.
Taking photos at home, we had to think about a lot of things: where the sunlight comes in, at what time of day, and where it would look the best. During the first weeks of the pandemic, we only went out into the yard in front of our building, to a place that I call the ‘prison yard’. I even organised a special backdrop for photographs there, but when I set it up, it turned out to be too low. I wanted to make an ‘avedon’ [a black-and-white portrait on a white background, characteristic of the photographer Richard Avedon]. I tried to add some variety to the scenery, to the outdoors. After the pandemic, we’ll have access to more places again.
Podpis obrazka
photo: Michalina Morawicka, Marcin Morawicki
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Question
MD: Was Misia talking when you began taking the photos?
Odpowiedź
MM: She was talking, but in her own language.
Question
MD: What were her reactions like?
Odpowiedź
MM: She was excited about it, but she’s talking more now than she did in March. ‘We’re going to take a picture’; ‘Misia took a picture’. She talks about it, and she helps me unfold my tripod. She likes doing that. I also show her the photos, and I can see that she really does understand a lot.
Podpis obrazka
photo: Michalina Morawicka, Marcin Morawicki
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MD: How might this project develop further?
Odpowiedź
MM: I have an idea that we could keep creating these photos for many years, during the most important, good or pleasant moments. There are many ways in which this project could develop, but more than anything, I’d like it to be the way it is now – created on impulse, without a real plan. It just happened.
Podpis obrazka
photo: Michalina Morawicka, Marcin Morawicki
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MD: Do you think your daughter will want to continue doing this?
Odpowiedź
MM: I’d like that. I’m counting on it a little. I think that soon, she’ll be able to take over the staging part from me – soon, she’ll want to have, for example, a photo with her favourite teddy bear. If we continue with this, or if she does, it will only become more and more meaningful.
Question
MD: I think these photos are already very meaningful.
Odpowiedź
MM: Well, it’s such a small thing – a project that started during the pandemic, and something a bit more universal than the regular family photos we all take.
Podpis obrazka
photo: Michalina Morawicka, Marcin Morawicki
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Question
MD: What do these photos mean to you?
Odpowiedź
MM: This is the first project I’ve done with my daughter, and these are her very first photos. For me, these photos are essential, because it’s also my first project since finishing my photography studies.
We started doing this series so organically – from nothing, really. I had everything on hand; I didn’t have to cook anything up.
Podpis obrazka
photo: Michalina Morawicka, Marcin Morawicki
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Question
MD: Did anything unexpected happen while you were taking the photos?
Odpowiedź
MM: Yes, the shutter release button got stuck pretty often, so the memory card got filled up a few times. Misia also started taking photos with her teeth – maybe that’s why.
Misia moves around a lot, so I had to use larger apertures. We also used various tricks to control the sharpness. We used a camera with a central shutter, so I could take the pictures with flash, but also with a very short shutter speed. The flash added something cool sometimes, while at other times, it removed the ‘poetry’ I saw through the viewfinder.
Podpis obrazka
photo: Michalina Morawicka, Marcin Morawicki
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medium [1076 px]
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Question
MD: How has the pandemic changed your lives?
Odpowiedź
MM: Holidays and days off have been the hardest. We spent the holidays together just the three of us, like all the other days. Later, we started visiting our parents again, but we didn’t go into the house at first. I ate dinner outside when it was 5°C, in just a jacket. It was ridiculous.
When it comes to work, we’re freelancers – so when everything was closed, we weren’t earning any money. But we finally had some time to ourselves. There were no deadlines or commercial projects. We had fewer things to take care of. It was only after some time that the uncertainty and the doubts began to settle in.
The financial issues aside, I think that shutting things down for a little while was good for us. It turned out that we are what’s most important to each other, that our family is the most important – that spending time together, in some nice way, is the most important thing of all.
Podpis obrazka
photo: Michalina Morawicka, Marcin Morawicki
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Question
MD: Have these weeks of closure affected your priorities, such as your professional goals?
Odpowiedź
MM: So far, we’ve been traveling a lot, and now, we’re thinking of renting a summer house near Warsaw. While we were doing this project, I really felt that it was worth doing things that feel important. The pandemic created a void in my life, a space I could use for creative work. I’ve been working in a commercial context for a few years now, and after taking these photos, I felt that it would also be nice to find some room in my life for my own projects. It might sound like a cliché, but I had forgotten about that. This project with Misia is really, truly important to me.
Podpis obrazka
photo: Michalina Morawicka, Marcin Morawicki
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Tekst
Interview originally conducted in Polish by Michał Dąbrowski, translated by Lauren Dubowski, Jun 2020
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Introduction
The photographer Marcin Morawicki and his young daughter, Michalina, or ‘Misia’, have created a series of photographs together – unpretentious self-portraits which offer a window into their everyday lives. Were it not for the forced isolation caused by the coronavirus, these photos probably never would have been made. Here, Marcin shares the story behind these images and discusses the other changes the pandemic has brought about.
Summary
The photographer Marcin Morawicki and his young daughter, Michalina, or ‘Misia’, have created a series of photographs together – unpretentious self-portraits which offer a window into their everyday lives. Were it not for the forced isolation caused by the coronavirus, these photos probably never would have been made. Here, Marcin shares the story behind these images and discusses the other changes the pandemic has brought about.