A landscape has a face
In a forest you can photograph trees. You can also watch someone hold up a mushroom and give it their full attention. These frames are about people: their gestures, concentration and joy. We get to know a place through people, too.
Joy that fits in your hands
Mushrooms in hand, a toy horse tucked under an arm, a hood pulled over the eyes. I like a portrait to keep those details. They give me a particular person and a particular moment. The forest can quietly become the backdrop. Sometimes a hand on a shoulder and two steps taken together are enough. A portrait like that does not even need a face.
Let the pedals rest
Two raised feet turn an ordinary ride into a small performance. Someone waves; someone blows a kiss. In moments like these I need to notice the gesture in time. That is the freedom I want to keep: a person briefly forgetting how they are supposed to look. Then they turn their head and look at the mountains.
The mountains can wait a moment
With a panorama like this, it is easy to give the whole photograph to the mountains. Here I let the person in front of the lens come first, then allow the eye to travel further. In the final frame I reverse the scale: a person becomes a small red figure on a vast slope.
Two gazes in the same direction
In Lutowiska, a man and Rebelczad sit on motorcycles before the same panorama. One alive, the other made of steel. Both look ready to ride away. There is something in that pairing I cannot fit into the word “portrait” alone. So I leave some room for the road and for imagination.