Marcin Retecki FineArt Photography

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This is a place to comment my Week 17 self-portrait.

Now a bit off-topic.
I’ve been lately thinking about technology as a whole, the changes that we can now observe, how much the world will be different in 10 years (it will) and many other, overwhelming things. Maybe not overwhelming, but certainly huge …

Being creative, being inspired, giving inspiration and having incredible ideas – it’s all the way I am and the way I want to be. Whenever anything disturbs my creative balance I feel wistful.

Instead of working on my new ideas, I start thinking about things I haven’t achieved. Completely unproductive…

There are different reasons for this creative stopper. Sometimes serious, sometimes not. It can be some a sort of tragedy or just a flat sandwich.

For me, there two such “small” things that really make me uncreative. It’s cold rain and getting up early.

People tend to tell me that I should control my own creativity and that it has nothing to do whether I stay up late or not. They often forget about the importance of rituals. I don’t mean religious ones, but everyday rituals.

How you prepare your meal, where do you like to get your tea/coffee, what you do before sleep, who you talk with and many more…

Those rituals create our everyday lives. …

When we take photos of a certain subject we can easily get used it. We begin to feel more comfortable and confident. Then, we as easily forget the whole process and stay in this comfort zone.

I have prepared a short video with my story about street photography. I hope it will encourage you to try it out yourself:

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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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I’ve been thinking lately about what photography really means for me. It turned out to be a quite complicated case as I couldn’t come up with any simple answer.

As far as I remember, art meant more to me than I could understand. I’ve been developing connections with art works, creating my own, individual worlds connected to them. When I look at a piece thats truly appealing I feel any combination of these three elements: A total thrill, I get cold on the skin and warm inside. That usually happens when an artwork is appealing for me with it’s form, either colors, contrast, feel, sound, tone, so on, so on. Second one is admiration, I just can’t look away (or “hear away”) and stop thinking how has an author achieved it. It usually comes with a great and thought-provoking subject. The third one is nothingness. …