Here’s how Plewiński commented on his partisan-like method of work:
Each week we’d accost girls in the streets and in student’s cafeterias. They had to be noticed, encouraged, appointed. We did everything on our own, from make-up, which they had no idea about, through hairdressing to borrowing clothes from our wives’ closets.
Anna Dymna, 1970, Kraków, photo: Wojciech Plewiński
Anna Dymna, photographed a dozen years later, in 1970, was on her second year of acting school and has already debuted in Wesele / The Wedding on the scene of Słowacki’s Theatre. A year after the publication in Przekrój, the actress starred five films, and during the works on Pięć i pół bladego Józka (in the end the film was never made) she has met her future husband, Wiesław Dymny – a poet and an actor. He was one of the creators of Piwnica pod Baranami / The Cellar under the Rams with which Plewiński also co-operated.
Anna Seniuk, 1968, photo: Wojciech Plewiński
Plewiński quite quickly became recognisable in Kraków. Not only did he gather fans, but also some followers.
Some cases were funny, like this time, when a girl was really unsure, as if she was afraid of something. I shown her my press card, I told here how it’s going to look like. And she said: “You know, I’ve already been photographed by a Wojciech Plewiński, but it wasn’t you”.
Beata Tyszkiewicz, 1958, photo: Wojciech Plewiński
Photo shoot in Przekrój did not seem so innocent to some. After a publication of the “excessively undressed” pictures in the weekly, Beata Tyszkiewicz was forbidden to undertake her school-leaving examination by the authorities of the Catholic school which she attended.
Theatre
Photographs from Wojciech Plewiński’s album Sketches from culture. Józef Szajna, 1964, Kraków, photo: Wojciech Plewiński
The photographer speaks of his theatre beginnings with a great amount of modesty:
I got there by accident, really. Someone was sick, someone else couldn’t make it.
Photographs from Wojciech Plewiński’s album Sketches from culture. Krzysztof Najbor in the play Doktor Faustus, dir. Andrzej Dziuk, Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz Theatre, 1986, Zakopane, photo: Wojciech Plewiński
He received his first order from Teatr Rapsodyczny, where, among others, Karol Wojtyła, the future pope, performed. A coincidence was helpful to gain a couple of first contacts, but orders from the most recognised Kraków scenes was an effect of a job well done. Plewiński photographed plays of Wajda, Szajna, Grzegorzewski and Kantor.
