Marcin Retecki FineArt Photography

To continue the tradition from last year, I would like to present you some of my photos from this year. A lot happened, I got my bachelors degree, started teaching Norwegian, begun taking portrait photos, finished my Abstract Art Project (not shown in here as majority was taken last year) and started focusing my ideas for future, just to find even more ideas! Not a perfect year, but certainly a good one and promising even better 2010.

The year started with me still being on university, didn’t have much time back then and besides my first portrait attempts I only took a bunch of nature pictures. …

TZN is a drug abuse preventing organization in Poland. However, in addition to helping addicts and informing about dangers concerning drugs, TZN organizes therapy groups for teenagers having problems withing their families, school or with police.

In the beginning of December, my dear friend Marta asked me to take some portraits of those teenagers and two weeks later, five of them gathered in TZN’s building for a photoshoot. First, I wanted to take them outside but it turned out to be too much hassle and so we stayed inside. Corridor was quite appealing with it’s scratched walls and gratings.

Between patients, customers and different organizations’ members going up and down the corridor I begun taking pictures. At first atmosphere was a bit rusty but guys felt better with every blink of strobes. However, one of my subjects felt rather stressed. Kuba is very withdrawn and reserved. He showed it beautifully in the below shot:

After some persuasion he finally showed some positive emotions, started smiling, laughing and fooling around in front of the lens… …

As I mentioned in my last post, on Sunday I have taken a few portraits of my friend Malwina. In the above photo I opted for a classic, one light portrait. Black background gives her a nice, smooth gradient on left chick and neck. There was just enough light to make a highlight on earrings and show the overall shape of her face.

Malwina was a bit scarred of the photo shoot. She never posed before, besides for snaps. However she needed just a few photos to become confident and have a blast posing in front of camera. …

Marta is too kind, whenever I get an idea for a photo she is there to support it and even stand in front of the lens if needed. Yesterday we had a little session with our friend, Malwina, and since Marta was with us, I shot her as well. Ever since Marta had a new haircut I couldn’t wait to take photos of her.

I had two ideas. The above one is completely different from my usual photos. I never shot on white background before but there is always that first time I guess. This photo was taken exactly as planned, however the second one you can see below was more of a “moment” idea. …

Expressionism is, quite possibly, my favorite movement in painting, with Edvard Munch being my all-time favorite. When I look at his works with the eye of a photographer, I am always wondering about how to show the vision that appears in my heart. How to capture the moment that is there, at the back of my mind, but that, in reality, is nowhere to be found?

Many of the photography purists believe that one should only depict that what is already there. I have seen many works created with that principle in mind, and I have a huge collection of breathtaking, all-natural landscapes on deviantArt. Many of those are truly astonishing, but I cannot help thinking that it is only a part of the truth.

Pictures of that kind show the reality that anyone could see in the chosen place at the given time, differing perhaps only in the intensity of hue and color used by their creator. However, such photographs do not convey the emotions that accompanied every person perceiving the landscape. And on this problem we may elaborate, as every scene, from nature or people’s life, is perceived differently by each and every one of us. …

As I have mentioned earlier, I can “feel” art on different levels. It can be either strong, deep emotions, or just plain interest. The problem occurs when I know, that a piece of art is my type, but I don’t feel anything…

For me, it’s like an earthquake, flood and avalanche at once. For many years I’ve been developing deep connections with pieces of art, either movies, paintings, books or photographs. I developed my taste, my sense of technique and expression. I have my favorites, I care about them and often come back for inspiration. This library is getting bigger everyday as I look for more all the time. You could have seen that in my Sunday links mini series. Nowadays I’m sharing my new finds using Twitter.
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