Rudnicki's words could also refer to the images of pre-war Poland created by Roman Vishniac, Menachem Kipnis, Alter Kacyzne, or photographers working for foreign agencies and magazines (such as Louise Arner Boyd from National Geographic), who documented the culture of small towns and Jewish shtetls, distinctly differing from that of the West. Dorys' photographs are especially interesting in this context due to the narrator's certain “invisibility” and the extremely short distance between the photographer and his subject. This was possible thanks to the invention of film cameras that enabled the taking of candid pictures. The photographer asserted:
The Leica turned out to be just wonderful. It most of all provided the opportunity to photograph secretly. And still, one sometimes needed to endlessly lie in wait with the hidden camera, pretending to pick one's nose.
Dorys survived the occupation in a hideout provided by the family of another prominent photographer from Warsaw, Czesław Olszewski. After the war, he returned to photographing the elite – from opera divas or the violinist Wanda Wiłkomirska to dignitaries of the new government, with Prime Minister Cyrankiewicz at the forefront.
Paradoxically, some critics, including Jerzy Busza, consider the photographs taken in Kazimierz by the professional portraitist and notable nude photographer to be “the first modern photo reportage introducing the contemporary technique and style of narrating reality through the medium of photography.” When revisiting his material from Kazimierz years later, Dorys re-examined his photographs and improved contrast and composition wherever it was necessary. The photographs included in the portfolio are of various proportions, however once framed in a uniform format of the decorative bases, they form a coherent whole.
It might be surprising at first to see that a series of such significance for the history of Polish photography was published as a bibliophile edition numbering 300, especially in the times when photo albums were rarely released in print runs shorter than five or ten thousand copies. The specific theme of the photographs was probably crucial in making this decision. In 1970s, the fate of the Polish Jewish community was still a taboo subject. The Visual Arts Studio's carefully prepared, limited edition publication also specifically exposes the artistic, connoisseur aspects of Dorys' Kazimierz photographs.
photographs: Jerzy Benedykt Dorys
text: Romuald Kłosiewicz
graphic design: Henryk W. Piekarniak
publisher: Visual Arts Studio, Warsaw
year of publication: 1979
volume: 4 pages + 18 lose sheets
format:
cover: paperback, cardboard portfolio
print run: 300