Sir Ernst Gombrich with 18th century death mask.
Portrait Photography is a visual memory created by gestures, smiles, movements, fleeting looks and impression of what was said, when we had met and trusted each other.
At times those portraits are straightforward, at others they are complex, visually challenging. They are always created from a moment of special affinity, a kind of spiritual kinship, between two different personalities – the photographer and sitter.
Sir Ernst Gombrich was a major art historian of the 20th century.
His academic publications related to psychology of perception like Art and Illusion, The Sense of Order and The Image and the Eye were complimented by one of the best introductions to the history of visual arts: The Story of Art.
The Story of Art was first published in 1950 and currently in its 16th edition.
It is widely regarded as one of the most accessible introductions to the history of visual art. It has sold millions of copies and been translated into more than 30 languages.
Light
Matthew was a young singer and I liked the intensity of his dream and his belief that anything is possible. It was only natural that Matthew asked me to take portraits of him.
It was a beautiful day, but too sunny for what I wanted. The light was simple and the story was complex. It wouldn’t work. About six o’clock, just before dusk, I suggested that we go to ‘the city’.
I do not remember our conversation while we were walking, because I was looking for a place to shoot. Suddenly I saw a small church, so I asked Matthew to rest against a doorway. Matthew wedged himself into a corner and leaned his head against the wall. The uniform, grey hue of that evening gave the scene a monotonous character.
I gently asked Matthew to move out of the shadows just a little and as he turned towards me, the street lamps suddenly came on, casting an orange streak of light on his cheek.
I shot instantly.
Since I photographed this scene on black-and-white film the portrait almost retained its tranquil atmosphere, but with an underlying tension.
Photography for me is a companion
Photography for me is a companion, which silently attends my meetings with other people.
It is like reportage, but with a common consent.
I imagine that a portrait is like an imprint of what we shared while being with each other, a unique permanent shadow created by gestures, smiles, movements, fleeting looks, atmosphere of what was said, light permeating the place, where we met.
Everything I desire to retain forever while time is passing away and distances between us widening after we depart.
I wish to keep those images, because they were portraits of real people, reflecting their personalities at that moment in their lives.
I believe that by showing them later to other people, who never met my interlocutor, they would like to meet her or him too. That my portraits would serve as an introduction to an interesting conversation, to a beautiful story, to a memorable event, to a new opening in life for ever widening circle of those who are interested.
So, this is the main purpose why I take photographic portraits of people I encounter in my life.
People I photographed often use those portraits later on for media interviews if they work for theatres or have exhibitions, in their books if they are writers or in concert programs if they are composers or musicians.
Composition
While studying Art History at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow most of my friends were artists with whom I attended many wild parties.
Some were painters; others were sculptors, performance artists, stage designers, architects, musicians..
I took portraits of some of them, and they used those images for interviews, catalogues, which accompany their exhibitions, while I did show these photographs at my exhibitions.
One of them, Maciej Jerzmanowski, organised happenings and land-art projects, and my role here was much more elaborate.
It was so because his art was ephemeral, shown just once and then evaporated. The only records were my photographs.
And here is a sample of such event –Jerzmanowski covered a slope just outside Krakow with a geometrical grid using paper tapes. It was like taking over a natural environment by his design. It was a purest expression of what we do since ancient times, when planning towns, cities, army bases and many other urban spaces.
I am grateful to all those artists, because they taught me how to compose images in such a manner that they tell the story.
After all creating art is to compose it, so it can be presented to others.
Krakow and Leszek Dlugosz
Krakow, a mediaeval city in the south of Poland with its beautiful kings’ castle and a history of rich, varied, hugely influential theatres, painters, writers and thinkers was my childhood playground.
Meeting interesting people was as natural as walking across Rynek, the main square of the town.
As I grew up I befriended many artists, poets, musicians and other remarkable people, who created cultural tapestry of Krakow.
It was not unusual that I took photographic portraits of them, like this one of a poet and a singer, Leszek Dlugosz.
This happened while I was visiting him at home, a place of the almost surreal atmosphere well suited to that dark apartment and Leszek’s persona.
Leszek played his new song for me on a grand piano and then we had a brief photographic session without any additional lighting.
The image grew out of the ambience of his poems, his music, his way of living and my understanding of portrait photography.
Leszek Dlugosz, a poet, a writer, a singer and a journalist.
Andrew Brown – a creative personality
Chelsea Arts Club, since its founding in 1891 by James Whistler and his friends, has been the place to meet the bohemians of London.
I do not remember exactly what had happened during the day, but it had been a tiring one, and we’d gone at the end of it to this particular club to relax. We sat at a large oval table made of dark wood, with three wax candles burning in the middle, while next to us a black musician with long fingers and a profile like Pericles was playing the piano – perhaps it was ‘Round Midnight’ by Thelonious Monk, but perhaps not.
At the dinner we talked about how passion should fill every moment of existence, and tasted Muscat from Beaumes de Venise, which Andrew had ordered.
Suddenly I asked Andrew if I could take photographs of him and he smiled in agreement. Our session lasted just a few minutes, but when we returned to our fellow guests, the pianist was already playing something else or maybe he was improvising, as we’d done a short time before.
Andrew Brown is a founder of iconic art gallery 369 in Edinburgh and also a painter himself
New world
Richard Newman was surrounded by a group of young people, who were intrigued by his dynamic, shaman like personality. Richard told me that these young people were bursting with Something, which needed a name.
I thought that this could be described as a hidden energy that was already germinating in their souls, that they felt, but didn’t dare to articulate.
Richard continued, saying that he could see this nascent dawn in the eyes, mouth, even gestures of those Richmond teenagers gathered around him. And that I ought to photograph them, so that my images would reveal the strength of their young desires.
Richard was certain that my portraits would make them to understand the mystery of their Future and it would inspire them to create new songs and a new style for their generation.
Once those portraits were printed, Richard hired a recording studio, set images on walls and music started to flow.
It was very special experience to see a path from photographs as a visual score to music creation.
Richard Newman, is a musician and record producer, who played with Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac, Charlie Watts of The Rolling Stones and Pete Townshend of The Who.
Life happens once in every breath we take
The main objective for me is to understand and to capture the sense of personality of a model, of that elusive essence, which sparks one’s energy to create their life.
This has to happen in a split moment, perhaps as short as 1/200 of second, as face and complimentary gestures evolve surprisingly and (almost) unpredictably quickly.
For that reason a photographer has to be intuitive, has to anticipate, foresee body movement, the way somebody focuses on people around, on lips, hands and the manner of attention to objects in close surroundings.
That moment will not wait suspended for a photographer to release a shutter, it will not re-wind even if it is a performance.
James Thackara is an American writer who has lived in the United Kingdom since 1971 and became a British citizen in 2007. He has published three novels – “America's Children” (1984), “Ahab's Daughter” (1989), and “The Book of Kings” (1999).
My last studio session
This is a portrait of a dancer, Elizabeth Wright, which was taken during the last few days of a studio residency in London, kind of farewell to working in a photographic studio with artificial, strobe lighting, white umbrellas and so on.
Since that time I only worked on location, using available light only– usually daylight. In majority of situations those places were new, previously unknown to me.
My style of work is to focus on a casual atmosphere, which tends to bring out relaxed feeling from subjects. This was and is the normal way I take portraits. It also does make it totally unpredictable, uncontrollable – therefore inspirational and demanding.
Most of the time I am engaged to take portraits of people I have met for the very first time, which makes this special and unusual too.
Maybe that is why Bem Le Hunte wrote to me: “You are such an evocative photographer, with images that are so haunting, conjuring up stories from another time and place”
Bem Le Hunte British-Indian author of “Elephants with Headlights”,"The Seduction of Silence" and "There, Where the Pepper Grows". She is also an Associate Professor at the University of Technology Sydney, where she’s the founding director of the Bachelor of Creative Intelligence and Innovation.
True destiny
Ever since I started to work as a photographer I was under a continuous pressure to become a commercial photographer, one who is able to provide services for weddings, for brand promotion, for nice looking portraits. This pressure came from best-meaning family members, who wished me well.
These photographers are remarkable in their ability to design images, which compliment desired branding. I admire their skills, which I would never be able to match.
Their clients would never be my clients, because I do not perform to their expectations.
My way of taking portraits comes from such different premise that I would never satisfy their dreams.
It is not because I am incapable; it is because my internal drive to take photographs comes from a desire to create portraits, which represent personalities as exceptional individuals.
As Sir John Tusa, MD of BBC World Service and the Barbican Arts Centre wrote: Bo Lutoslawski is a ‘photographer with a deep insight into people and character, an extraordinary honesty and a capacity to reveal the identity of his sitters’
I am simply not able to work in any other way. This is my destiny, my true fate.
Here is a portrait of Sir John Tusa.
Communication in 2020
During these past few weeks probably the best one-to-one, long-distance communication opened up on an exponential scale. It is as close to intimate conversation without being physically present as possible.
Now we can talk about things, which are of common interest with a person we didn’t even know by name a few minutes earlier. Yes, I am talking about video conferencing, which grew-up to compete with phone-conferencing, e-mails, letters in envelopes and a podium in Speakers' Corner on the north-east edge of Hyde Park, London.
Now business and private lives converged, cats are stretching across keyboards, dogs are snoring, children run in playing basketball, coffee is spilled on important papers, formal clothes are forgotten. Yet, important decisions are taken, plans are made and action worth of a lot of money can be arranged. Authentic people move with action swiftly, with clarity and achieve consistent goals because they trust each other, because they can look into each other eyes, react to natural gestures and see genuine smiles.
Now, eventually, we discover a real person behind a portrait on a company website, photo which is so uncongenial.
Now is the time to change those passport photos for sincere portraits, which show individual characters – people we can swiftly connect with.
Mask
An American photographer, Irving Penn, once said that what people hide behind their masks during a photographic session is usually more interesting than they themselves believe.
So Penn worked with his models slowly and kindly, patiently coaxing out their inner qualities and complexities, and creating amazing portraits in the process.
But I do not have the same luxury of time that he had, so I rush my models to open up as soon as I look at them through my lens.
I believe that their hiding is mainly to do with shyness and insecurity when faced with an intimidating photographer, whose face is hidden behind a camera probing into their soul with a glass eye of a lens.
It is not a welcoming atmosphere, isn’t it?
I believe that the secrets, which are dwelling in their eyes, are positive and powerful, that their faces project personalities, which are fascinating.
So I take the mask off and extend my hand to my models while taking portraits.
It is just a simple as that.
After all we want to trust others – it is a profoundly human desire and need. Once we do, we become open and true to our characters.
Image is for ever
My first professional assignment, in 1966, was a portrait of an actress. I was sixteen years old at that time.
Since 60’s I took many portraits of famous people, who obviously were older than me. It is therefore not astonishing that it became a trend for a while, that my photographs were and are published with the press articles and books about them after their death.
Some have been used for many years after they died, because their work didn’t die – books are still published, their music is performed and influence of those individuals is still relevant to us.
The first time I thought about it was, when a great cellist, Kazimierz Wilkomirski, at the conclusion of our session told me: "This portrait will be my image after I die".
A similar opinion I heard from Michael Vyner, a music entrepreneur of amazing sensitivity.
I understood the reason behind it when a celebrated photographer, Alexi Lubomirski, wrote to me about my portraits that they are “… Extremely soulful…”
I realised that these portraits convey the intensity of those extraordinary people, in spite of the reality of them no longer present.
It may be a coincidence, that I am writing those lines while listing to a song by Johnny Cash “Where the Soul of Man Never Dies”.
This portrait is of Bohdan Pociej – a writer and philosopher (January 17, 1933 – March 3, 2011)
Richard Avedon
Richard Avedon, one of the most important photographers ever, was born on 15th of May – so we can celebrate his birthday this week.
Avedon’s wonderful sagacity, instinctive timing combined with the most sensitive ability to compose were at the heart of his photography. For many of us Avedon will remain forever as the Grand and yet most Natural Master, while his images will inspire many generations of creative artists to come.
Even composers write music, which grew out of Avedon’s photographs.
It was one of most depressing days in my twenties, when I had to leave a place where I was living at that time; the worst was to loose my darkroom. As I was packing my enlarger into a box, a parcel arrived to me all the way from America.
It was an unusual event, as I was living in Eastern Block Country, in Poland. The sender was Richard Avedon from 407 East 75th St, New York, N.Y. 10021
With a kind letter Avedon also included a catalogue from his recent exhibition in the Minneapolis Institute of Art.
I stopped packing, read a letter, felt overwhelmed by positive emotions and forgot about depressing circumstances I was in.
A letter from far away can alter one’s life.
The enclosed portrait is of a prominent Polish poet, Mieczyslaw Jastrun, which I’d sent to Avedon a few weeks earlier.
Witold Lutosławski
Witold Lutosławski was born in 1913, in Poland and from early childhood was playing on a piano. After a tragic event (Witold’s father was executed by Bolsheviks in 1918) he lived in Warsaw, where he studied both Music and Mathematics.
Soon Lutosławski decided to focus on music and all was going well, but with a start of the Second World War all progress was wiped out. Witold had to survive the danger of Nazi occupation of Poland. Days and nights could come to an abrupt closure with street execution or deportation to a concentration camp and subsequent death.
Witold Lutosławski worked as a pianist in cafes, in Warsaw and in 1944 escaped the annihilation of his hometown with just one piece of music: “Variations on a Theme by Paganini”.
In 1994 Witold Lutosławski died in Warsaw. By that time he was seen as one of the major European composers of the 20th century, performed all over the world, admired and awarded most prestigious prizes both in relation to his music and for his personal standing for Polish independence.
Witold Lutosławski most generous help to other people was often anonymous.
This set of CDs with Lutosławski’s music was published on the centenary of his birthday. The portrait was taken in Witold’s home – I still recall the soulful atmosphere of that session.
Glenda Jackson
Glenda Jackson left school at 15 and worked at Boots Chemist. Apparently her ambition was to get a transfer from the medical counter to cosmetics.
But after studies at RADA she worked as an actress from the late 1950s onwards - the Royal Shakespeare Company from 1964, where Glenda Jackson worked with director Peter Brook during 'Theatre of Cruelty' season (Peter Weiss' Marat/Sade (1965) and subsequently in the 1967 film version – which had a profound impact on myself as a photographer.
Glenda Jackson also worked with other extraordinary directors like Ken Russell, Melvin Frank and Peter Hall and has won two Academy Awards for Best Actress: for Women in Love (1970) and A Touch of Class (1973).
At the same time she was present on TV – like when playing Queen Elizabeth I in the BBC's serial Elizabeth R (1971).
As if it was not enough Jackson stood for election to the House of Commons in the 1992 general election, subsequently becoming the Labour MP for Hampstead and Highgate.
Recently Glenda Jackson returned to the stage playing the title role in William Shakespeare's King Lear.
This portrait of Glenda Jackson was taken during one of her last performance in pre-political stage of Glenda Jackson’s life, in a theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue.
Anna Lutoslawska
A Polish girl with long braids, Anna, was eleven years old when the Second World War exploded in 1939.
Thus her dreams of becoming an actress were vanquished.
Anna’s father was deported to camps in Siberia, notorious Gulag while Anna with her mother had to endure years of Nazi oppression on their own.
They were often hungry, wore wooden clogs even in a middle of winter, wrapped themselves in coats made from old blankets and feared extermination at any time. In 1944, with war still raging in the western Poland, seventeen years old Anna was welcomed to study in a newly open Drama College in Krakow.
Since then Anna Lutoslawska played over one hundred leading roles in plays by William Shakespeare, Berthold Brecht, Juliusz Slowacki in great theatres as well as in her own adaptations from Thomas Mann and others. Multiple awards, film roles and books followed, while Anna’s creative work continues, as she is performing all over Poland.
This poster is based on a photograph I took of Anna Lutoslawska, in a role of Rose in “The Foreigner”, a play, which subsequently went on a tour throughout Poland and was brought to London too.
For a while the chief editor of British Vogue, Beatrix Miller, kept this poster on a wall in her office, in London.
Anna Lutosławska, an actress, 1927-2022
Nigel Osborne
Emeritus Reid Professor of Music at the University of Edinburgh, Nigel Osborne is a British composer, teacher and intensely committed aid worker. He is well known for his imaginative charity work with war traumatised children using Music Therapy techniques, in the Balkans, especially Sarajevo and Mostar, Chechnya, with child soldiers in North Uganda and now in the current Syrian conflict and Ukraine. Nigel is multi-linguist, which helps in his activities in so many communities.
Nigel is natural in music making, highly appreciated for his compositions, which have been performed all over the world, admired for his wide-ranging and genuinely touching charity vocation, an amazingly knowledgeable mind and such a warm, kind personality.
For Nigel Osborne creating dreams equals setting up an action – they merge into each other and grow into new dreams. I think that for Nigel the rhythm of his soul guides his work, which in turn feeds his soul – and everybody’s around him.
Nigel cooperated with many amazing people: artists, dancers, musicians, poets both as a composer and as a charity worker. A list is too long to show.
This portrait was taken in Kent, where Nigel Osborne was the Master of Ceremony, conducting a marriage of Kayleigh Nunez and Max Lutoslawski.
Photographers' Magnum Agency
My first visit to Paris took place at the beginning of my professional life as a photographer.
I was eager to meet photographers, who inspired me when started up in Poland. Within days I had breakfast with Guy Bourdin, at Vogue and that same week visited famous Magnum Agency, run by photographers.
Marc Riboud took care of me there, explained how the Agency works, introduced me to Josef Koudelka and a few other people, who made that iconic agency to be the best in the world.
Not a long time ago, when I was living in Wales for a while, I visited Tintern, a small village in Wye Valley, which is a home to an extraordinary photographer, David Hurn, also a member of the Magnum Agency, photographer who was in the heart of what was happening in sixties and seventies on both sides of Atlantic.
We drank coffee and we talked about photographers.
David’s stories, rich in wonderful encounters, were fascinating and also brought to my mind portraits of The Beatles, when they were filming “A Hard Day’s Night”, images, which I displayed in my bedroom, when I was a teenager.
Just before I took this portrait of David Hurn, he said, “All good photographers are honest, sincere and kind. Otherwise they cannot be good photographers”.
I cannot agree more.
Berlin
My first encounter with Berlin was in 1975 - it left a lasting impression of a place so rich and multifaceted, that it inspired many stories and many dreams.
My second encounter with Berlin was in 2018 - it left a lasting impression of a place so rich and multifaceted, that it inspired many stories and many dreams, but so very different from 1975.
It was like a different continent.
I am grateful to Berlin to be so diverse and yet so cohesive as a personality