The Women Photographers of the Transformation
In the era of analogue photography, what did the life and work of women look like? We recall the professional beginnings of 10 of them, the subjects of Monika Szewczyk-Wittek’s book 'Jedyne' (The Only Ones).
In the introduction, the author explains how she came up with the idea:
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I started my career with the ‘Fotorzepa’ photo agency, then I was transferred to the photo- editing team. I had the opportunity to meet prominent (male) photographers and journalists of both genders. But what about women photographers? There were very few of them at that time! Just a few names, and not even one woman was working for the Warsaw team.
Monika Szewczyk-Wittek, 'Jedyne. Nieopowiedziane historie polskich fotografek', photo: Dom Spotkań z Historią (History Meeting House)
Similarly to the author, the subjects of the book rarely limited their activities to photography. They found fulfilment in plenty of other photography-related fields – they selected photos for the press, organised exhibitions and directed films, and so on.
The recollection above concerns the beginning of the 2000s, the times before the digital revolution in photography and shortly before the popularisation of the internet, which was tantamount to the end of the great popularity of print journalism. The victims of these revolutions included photography departments of daily newspapers as well as full-time photojournalists. Although there are many more women photographers now, from time to time, on the occasion of a photography competition, the topic of their (lack of) presence on the lists of award-winners or among the members of juries tends to recur. However, let’s come back to the times when professional emancipation required plenty of persistence. What were the professional beginnings of the women from Jedyne? How did they get passionate about photography? And what did they love about it?
Anna Beata Bohdziewicz
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Anna Beata Bohdziewicz during the Round Table Talks, 1989, photo Zygmunt Świątek / promotional materials for the book 'Jedyne'.
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Photographer, exhibition curator, author of texts on photography. Her best-known series is Fotodziennik, Czyli Piosenka o Końcu Świata (Photo Journal, or a Song on the End of the World) – a kind of journal she has kept regularly since 1982. On the first photo of the series she captured Czesław Miłosz’s ‘A Song on the End of the World’ next to the small Olympus XA2 camera, to which she refers as ‘my pen’. Her inspiration for creating a series of photographs was derived from literature – the journals of Witold Gombrowicz, Miron Białoszewski and Samuel Pepys.
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From the series 'Photo Journal, or a Song on the End of the World', 1986. Photo: Anna Beata Bohdziewicz
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She became absorbed in the world of images of her own accord – she would passionately go through art albums, of which there were many in her house, as her father was a film director. She would take up photography more consciously after going to the Venice Film Festival in 1968. She displayed her first works in 1974, at an exhibition organised in her aunt’s sculpture studio. Except for her works from Venice, she showed images of Warsaw townhouses. Then she became politically involved, cooperating with the underground opposition movement. In 1980, she photographed the revealing of the Monument to the Fallen Shipyard Workers of 1970 for foreign press. The negatives, hurriedly developed in a car, were never returned to her. She burnt some of the photos from the ‘Solidarity’ protests in 1980, during martial law – she didn’t want them to become evidence against the opposition activists. In 1983, during the Znak Krzyża (Sign of the Cross) exhibition, she met Zofia Rydet – they were both displaying their works there. They would later meet during the conventions of the Union of Polish Art Photographers and secretly snigger at ‘those important male colleagues of ours’.
She defines her approach to photography in opposition to the concept of a decisive moment. She claims that if she found herself next to Cartier-Bresson, she would look the other way.
Anna Brzezińska
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Anna Maria Brzezińska in the editorial office of the daily newspaper Rzeczpospolita, mid-1990s, photo: private archive
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Photographer, photo-editor, exhibition curator and member of the jury of photographic competitions .the Professionally associated with photography since 1980. She started by taking photos for Tygodnik Solidarność (Solidarity Weekly), but she stayed the longest with Rzeczpospolita (The Republic) and the Polish Press Agency, where she worked as a photojournalist and the director of photography department.
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President Lech Wałęsa, surrounded by co-workers, learns of his defeat to Democratic Left Alliance leader Aleksander Kwasniewski in the second round of the presidential election, Warsaw, 19 November 1995, photo A. Brzezińska
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She became fascinated with photography during her holiday in Świerardów-Zdrój – the owner of the quarters where she stayed had a darkroom at home. The encounter with this sort of ‘magic’ pushed her to attend photography studies in Spokojna Street in Warsaw. However, the excess of theory temporarily discouraged her from pictures. She returned to photography in 1980, when she photographed the houses and inhabitants of the Świętokrzyskie (Holy Cross) Mountains. Later she gave up humanist photography in favour of capturing political transformations, taking commissions from newspapers and the episcopate. Her male colleagues treated her like a male friend rather than a female one, but she didn’t resent them for it. From Cezary Sokołowski, who apparently wanted to send her ‘back to the kitchen’ at first, she eventually heard that ‘she’s the exception confirming the rule’.
As a photojournalist, she would always carry a camera with her, and she didn’t use to have a purse. She bought her first one when she started to ‘boss people around’. Today, after many years of managing other photographers, she organises exhibitions and produces photo albums. She treats her current job as the crowning of her career path, deriving a lot of satisfaction from it, feeling fulfilled.
Iwona Burdzanowska
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Iwona Burdzanowska, August 1993, photo by Jacek Miroslaw / promotional materials for the book 'Jedyne'.
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She started as a scientific photographer, then she worked as a photojournalist and photo-editor. Her high school boyfriend infected her with a passion for photography, further reinforced by her godfather. She’s been convinced up to this day that if she was a man, her new hobby would have earned her parents’ respect and support. However, the approval of her turned out to be redundant because, as she claimed:
First sex is nothing compared to developing your first negative.
On her first photographs she captured her friends from the playground and from school. She simultaneously developed her other passions: parachuting and climbing the Tatra Mountains. The possibility of taking pictures was the precondition for taking up any new hobby.
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Minister Zdzisław Podkański signing the commemorative book of the 'Kos' Folk Dance Ensemble, Krasienin near Lublin, 1996, photo by I. Burdzanowska
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In the early 1980s, she started to work as a laboratory assistant at the Department of General Microbiology at the Marie Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin – she would capture ‘sliced bacteria and their DNA under an electron microscope’. At the age of 30, she traded scientific photography for a job with Gazeta Wyborcza (Electoral Gazette). What proved useful in her job as a photojournalist was the ease with which she made contacts. At the beginning of her new path, she would often encounter aggression, not just verbal. Then she took up sport photography. She didn’t like hearing obscenities at football games, but what she considered true photographic poetry was taking pictures at regattas.
Joanna Helander
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Joanna Helander and Wisława Szymborska, Kraków, 1984, photo by Bo Persson / promotional materials for the book 'Jedyne'.
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Photographer, documentary film director, journalist, translator. Born in 1948 in Ruda Śląska, where she spent her childhood and youth. She studied Romance studies at the Jagiellonian University and took an active part in the student events of March ‘68 in Kraków. In autumn that year she was forced to quit her studies. For protesting against the invasion by Warsaw Pact troops of Czechoslovakia she was sentenced to 10 months of prison. While in prison in Myślenice, Helander met women from various backgrounds and, according to herself, she matured quickly. That was also where she confirmed her convictions concerning the mendacious nature of the system called real socialism in which she grew up. After leaving prison, she became suspended at university and forced to return to Ruda Śląska, where she couldn’t find employment. That’s when she made the decision to emigrate. Thanks to her friends in Sweden, she entered a ‘paper marriage’ and left Poland in 1971. She has lived in Sweden up to this day.
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Przedszkolanka, Kraków, 1977, photo: Joanna Helander
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In 1978, in Sweden, she released her album Kobieta (Woman). It included plenty of photos from Ruda Śląska, mostly portraits of the author’s close and extended family. Interestingly, each chapter closes with a conversation with a man about so-called ‘women’s issues’. How did the artist manage to transport her photos over the border? In Poland, she would take pictures discreetly, pretending they’re family photos. She developed the films on the spot so that during the border control she could show the innocent-looking ‘pictures of aunts from Orzegów’. The problems with transporting photos began during martial law, but Helander could manage somehow nevertheless. Once, she convinced the customs officers that film cans are actually preserves, another time she bribed them with oranges. Kobieta was published by Aktuell Fotolitteratur, which promoted social photography. Among the authors of the 20 books published in the series, Helander was the only woman.
Her interest in other human beings stayed with her until today:
I like observing. For me it’s fun. I don’t need to go to a museum and look at pictures on a wall. I’m motivated by people I meet on the street. Despite all that, despite human cruelty, I haven’t stopped liking people and liking gals.
Marzena Hmielewicz
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Marzena Hmielewicz in the editorial office of 'Gazeta Wyborcza' in Wrocław, mid-1990s, photo: private archive
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Photojournalist, traveller. She started taking pictures without a camera – travelling by train to visit her boyfriend, she would ‘click’ with her eyelid, attempting to capture the views as she passed by. One day, partly out of boredom, partly out of curiosity, she enrolled on a photography course organised by Wrocław Photographic Society. Many hours spent in a darkroom provoked her fascination and allowed her to get to know the techniques. At first, she photographed mainly her loved ones, but she also took pictures in theatres and at concerts. For a long time, she treated photography as a hobby rather than as a profession. In the early 1990s she was hired as a secretary by Gazeta Dolnośląska (Lower Silesian Gazette). Soon after that, the newspaper launched a competition for the position of a photojournalist – Hmielewicz was picked by her colleagues unanimously. 'It was one of the happiest days of my career,' she admitted.
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Zdzisław Zaleziński in the performance 'Cardenio i Celinda, czyli nieszczęśliwie zakochani' (Cardenio and Celinda, or the unhappily in love), Wrocław Pantomime Theatre, autumn 1990, photo: Marzena Hmielewicz
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After a few years working for the newspaper, she started to miss artistic photography. Shortly before the age of 30, she was admitted to the Poznań Academy of Fine Arts, where she was one of the oldest students. Later, she took pictures for travel magazines, such as National Geographic and Explorers Journal. She chose searching for beauty and capturing experiences over current affairs.
I’ve always felt best when I could photograph beauty and harmony. I often take pictures which aren’t meant to be an intellectual challenge but rather harmony for harmony’s sake, beauty for beauty’s sake. They’re meant to express the joy of communing with photography.
Anna Michalak-Pawłowska
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Anna Michalak, 1984, photo by Artur Pawłowski / promotional materials for the book 'Jedyne'
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Photographer, theatrologist, organiser of cultural activities, lecturer. She wasn’t the only one in her family who took up photography – her parents and older brother also took photos and, as a result of this shared passion, all their family events are very well-documented. The artist admits that she would work with medium format cameras as early as in primary school, using the bathroom in their house as a darkroom. She wished to attend a photography class in a polygraph high school – sadly, it turned out that they only admitted men. The intervention in the headmaster’s office didn’t help. She explored the world together with the band Gawęda, during numerous trips and concert tours. She got serious about photography at the beginning of martial law. She documented manifestations, meetings at the University of Warsaw, John Paul II’s pilgrimage in June 1983. Her professional development was influenced, for instance, by Joseph Czarnecki, a photojournalist at Reuters. In 1984, she was arrested and beaten up for taking part in a manifestation and photographing ZOMO. She attended her court cases looking like ‘the good girl from Gawęda’ due to her clothes and hairdo, so it looked grotesque when she was accused of attempting an attack on Poland. She gave up her career as a photojournalist in 1987.
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ZOMO officers in one of the streets of Warsaw's Old Town during a demonstration on 3 May 1984, photo by Anna Michalak.
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Becoming a photo journalist was my dream. Up until the moment when Artur Pawłowski – a colleague of mine – became my candidate for a husband. I thought that if I continued my career as a photographer, I would be competing with him. […] However, I’m very happy to see so many women photographers today. My daughter is one of them.
Anna Musiałówna
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Anna Musiałówna, 1983, photo: private archive / promotional material for the book 'Jedyne'.
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Photographer, photojournalist, exhibition curator. Photography has been familiar to her ever since she was a child – her father ran a photographic studio in Suchedniów. She developed her ability to tell stories after leaving home – living in a boarding school, she wrote letters to her family every day.
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From the photo essay 'Nasza jesień 1981', 'Przyjaciółka', 1982, photo: Anna Musiałówna
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Before she began taking pictures, she pursued ballet and performed in Teatr Wielki. Her career was interrupted by an injury. She took up photography at the age of 23 – her brother, Maciek, a professional photographer, gifted her a camera. Later he became her teacher as well, helping her pick photos.
In 1972, she published her first material in itd, a well-known student weekly. It was a story about a countryside doctor from Mąchocice. While she didn’t have any problems with interpersonal relations and creating narratives, at the beginning she struggled with technical issues, and the then-available equipment didn’t make work any easier. The exposure was wrong, the cameras would tear the perforations. One of her renowned works was an account of an abortion – doctors removed a dead fetus from a woman’s body. The publication of the material led to her being forbidden from publishing further works under her own name. That didn’t prevent her from pursuing her passion:
I published under a different one. It didn’t matter. It was all about those on top knowing that the punishment was carried out. And I kept doing my thing.
In liberated Poland, the photographer became one of the most active social photojournalists. In Polityka (Politics) she published over 150 photo essays in a column titled ‘With My Own Eyes’.
Anna Pietuszko-Wdowińska
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Anna Pietuszko, August 1981, photo: Jerzy Woropiński / Forum
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Photojournalist, photo editor, head of the photo department in, among others, Życie Warszawy and the Polish Press Agency. For many years she collaborated with the democratic opposition in Poland.
When she wasn’t admitted to university to study Polish studies after high school, she moved to Denmark. Once she returned, she started searching for her own path – one of her friends recommended the photography school in Spokojna Street in Warsaw. She liked working in a darkroom as well as exercises in composition. Her friend Mirek Stelmach convinced her to pursue the career of a photojournalist. Shortly after that, she became a full-time photographer of the Masovian section of ‘Solidarity’. Her parents, initially sceptical towards their daughter’s career choice, started to believe in her after the first exhibition in the union’s headquarters in Mokotowska Street in Warsaw. The artist had the sense of partaking in ‘the most important thing in the world’ – she documented protests, met workers and opposition activists. How did she perceive the situation of women with cameras?
Back then, it was mostly men who pursued photography. Their opinion on women was that they couldn’t do anything. It was necessary to try harder and prove something to your male colleagues and to yourself after all. On the other hand, it was easier in the sense that I was sometimes treated like a mascot.
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Mass in Częstochowa during Pope John Paul II's second pilgrimage to Poland, 19 June 1983, photo: Anna Pietuszko / Ośrodek KARTA / promotional materials for the book 'Jedyne'.
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Pietuszko-Wdowińska still takes pictures today but only for her own pleasure. She avoids politics and ‘the world of great men’. It’s her belief that politics is filled with mediocrity. She prefers to photograph the sea, which she loves.
Agnieszka Sadowska
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Agnieszka Sadowska, Piła, 1983, photo: Grzegorz Zablocki / promotional materials for the book 'Jedyne'.
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Photographer, photojournalist. She got interested in photography during her high school years in Ełk. She lived close to a house of culture, where there were classes on the basics of photography. Not having been admitted to study Slavic studies at university, she decided to attend a photography college in Radawnica near Bydgoszcz. Her two-year studies began in 1982. Then, she continued her education in Warsaw, in a photography school grant-aided by the Ministry of Culture and the Union of Polish Art Photographers. During that time, her development was particularly influenced by Urszula Czartoryska, who 'would speak rather quietly but in an extremely interesting way'. For her class with Czartoryska, Sadowska wrote an essay titled ‘Self-fashioning in Women’s Art’. She referred to the art of Cindy Sherman, Natalia LL, Izabella Gustowska, Teresa Gierzyńska and Zofia Rydet. In 1989, the photographer travelled to the USA, where she could see Sherman’s works live.
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During a Mass celebrated by Pope John Paul II at the Krywlany airfield in Białystok, 5 June 1991, photo: Agnieszka Sadowska
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For me, Sherman is a prime example of inventiveness and creativity but also of surprising artistic statements. I was impressed by her independence and female power that she expressed in her work as a photographer.
Having returned to Poland, she began to work for the Puls magazine. Since 1992, Agnieszka Sadowska has worked for the Białystok issue of Gazeta Wyborcza. She believes photography to be a kind of addiction.
The thought that something unexpected could happen and I would be nearby without my camera is difficult to bear.
Maja Sokołowska
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Maja Sokołowska during the Janusz Kusociński Memorial at the RKS Skra Stadium, Warsaw, 1979, photo: Tomasz Prażmowski / promotional materials for the book 'Jedyne'.
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Sport photojournalist and studio photographer. She was introduced to photos by her father, who ‘walked through his whole life with a camera’ – he worked for the Central Photography Agency and was a member of ZPAF (Union of Polish Art Photographers). He assigned his daughter photography topics, taught her to compose photos and work with a camera. The prize for a job well-done was a kiss.
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European Judo Team Championships, October 1984, photo: Maja Sokołowska
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Sokołowska’s first photography-related job was one in a lab, but her dream was to become a professional photographer. She also played volleyball – as an attacker for the Skra Warszawa club. Her sports career was derailed by an injury, but her love of sport led to her working for the Sportowiec (Sportsperson) magazine. She began by preparing blow-ups of photos for her colleagues, but with time she became a part of the photography team. In her first published material she portrayed Janusz Pyciak-Peciak, a pentathlete and a Montreal Olympic champion. Later she became a full-time photojournalist. She enjoyed searching for non-obvious shots, but at the same time she admitted:
I’ve never taken a photo that could be interpreted two ways.
In the 1990s she opened her own photo studio, specialising in floral compositions. She currently photographs landscapes, architecture and her beloved dogs. She’s also started to work on her father’s archive.
