A Photographic Life - 110: Plus Witold Krassowski

In episode 110 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed considering the photographic image as proof of history, creating an archive, and the potential repetition of portrait photography. Plus this week photographer Witold Krassowski takes on the challenge of supplying Grant with an audio file no longer than 5 minutes in length in which he answer’s the question ‘What Does Photography Mean to You?’ Born in 1956 Witold Krassowski studied linguistics at the University of Warsaw and the Sorbonne, he received his doctorate in photography in 2009 at the Radio and Television Faculty of the University of Silesia in Katowice and three years later he received his post-doctoral degree. After receiving his final diploma his photographic hobby became his career. The situation at the time in Poland at that time was in major transition as communism was crumbling, and the Solidarność movement was created. For several years Krassowski was busy running and learning, documenting a country in a state change and turmoil. Disgusted with the state of the Polish economy, he moved to London in 1988. There he became involved with the Independent Magazine, where the photo editor Colin Jacobson offered him some assignments and suggested he join the Network Photographers agency. Krassowski has worked as a photo-reporter in Afghanistan, the UK, Mongolia, and India, but most of his creative output comes from Poland. His work has been published in various titles including Liberation, Tempo, Stern, Der Spiegel, The Observer, The Independent, The New Yorker, Forbes and Fortune, among others. He was the recipient of the World Press Photo Award in 1991 and 2003. Since 2009, he has published four books including Powidoki Z Polski: After Images of Poland and exhibited at the Freightdoors Gallery, California, USA; The Photographers Gallery, London, UK; Noorderlicht Photofestival, Holland and Perpignan Photo Festival, France. He teaches, at the Faculty of Media Art at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts. www.witoldkrassowski.com If you have enjoyed this podcast why not check out our A Photographic Life Podcast Plus. Created as a learning resource that places the power of learning into the hands of the learner. To suggest where you can go, what you can read, who you can discover and what you can question to further your own knowledge, experience and enjoyment of photography. It will be inspiring, informative and enjoyable! You can find out here: www.patreon.com/aphotographiclifepodcast You can also access and subscribe to these podcasts at SoundCloud https://soundcloud.com/unofphoto on iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/a-photographic-life/id1380344701 on Player FM https://player.fm/series/a-photographic-life and Podbean www.podbean.com/podcast-detail/i6uqx-6d9ad/A-Photographic-Life-Podcast Grant Scott is the founder/curator of United Nations of Photography, a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, a working photographer, and the author of Professional Photography: The New Global Landscape Explained (Focal Press 2014) and The Essential Student Guide to Professional Photography (Focal Press 2015). His book New Ways of Seeing: The Democratic Language of Photography was published by Bloomsbury Academic in 2019. His documentary film, Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay can now be seen at www.youtube.com/watch?v=wd47549knOU&t=3915s. © Grant Scott 2020