Wojtek is a Polish photographer currently based in county Tipperary, Ireland.
He participated in workshops with photographers and editors from Magnum, VII Photo Agency, and The National Geographic. He was selected for the Eddie Adams Workshop in 2015, and he was a student of the VII Masterclass in Berlin in 2016/2017.
Wojtek is a member of the photography collective OnEdgeStreet. When not taking photographs, Wojtek spends his time looking at them. He is a keen collector of photography books and prints. In 1990, at the age of 10, while visiting his distant family in Hamburg, Wojtek saved every single pfennig of his pocket money, and before going back to Poland, he purchased his first camera – the cheapest point and shoot on the market. Up to this day, he remembers how excited he was leaving the camera shop. For Wojtek, photography is a way of learning about the people and the society. Camera is a passport that allows him to go to the places he wouldn’t go otherwise. It is also a conversational ice-breaker. He often talks with the people he photographs, but only after the photograph is already taken.
Wojtek lives in a rural area of Ireland, where there is not that many opportunities for a street photographer, but he does travel a lot. In his street portfolio, there are pictures from Tokyo, New York, Morocco, India, and many European destinations. His style of travelling is influenced by his photographic passion. He likes to travel alone, to roam the streets and observe the people getting by with their everyday life. Wojtek always heads to the streets free of any preconceptions or ideas. With his open minded approach, he is constantly looking for surreal situations, interesting moments, contrasting light, quirky compositions, or strong colours.
Rather than spending time at the main street, he prefers getting lost in the small alleys hoping to find an interesting scene. While in Venice, Wojtek spent the most of his time on Giudecca, where for tourists there is ‘not much to see’, but Wojtek prefers to see local children playing football rather than thousands of tourists at Piazza San Marco. [Official Website]
