Michał Czarnecki
I live and work in Warsaw, Poland where I take most of my photographs. My interest in photography arose in 2012 when I attended documentary photography course led by Monika Szewczyk. This was eye opening experience that completely changed my view on photography. In the next years I continued to educate myself on my own but also attended some other workshops. I do my best to practise on the streets of my home town as often as possible. Recently I also try to build bigger body of work than a single image. As a result I have two long term projects in progress. When I am not photographing I enjoy playing samba (batucada).
Selected awards and group exhibitions
2018/04 – “Sony World Photography Awards” street photography category, commended photographer, London, England
2017/11 – “Urban Photo Awards” street photography category finalist, Trieste, Italy
2017/05 – “Polska Ulicznie 2017”, Dom Braci Jabłkowskich, Warsaw, Poland
2016/09 – “6. Leica Street Photo”, Leica 6×7 Gallery, Warsaw, Poland
2015/10 – “Street Art Photo”, within Białystok Interphoto Festival, Białystok Poland
2015/07 – “Eastreet 3. Street Photography from Eastern Europe” (catalogue) – Warsztaty Kultury, Lublin, Poland
Publications
2015/11 – “Warszawa. Podręcznik zamieszkiwania“, publisher: Centrum Sztuki Współczesnej Zamek Ujazdowski
2015/08 – “Vieworld photomagazine #13”, s. 70-77
GALLERY - STREET
GALLERY - LONGING FOR NATURE - WORK IN PROGRESS
In a series “Longing for nature” I look for traces, substitutes, references to nature in a form of architecture, imitations of flora, graphic representations, or custom cityscape elements to name a few, found in an urban environment. All these things are a sign for me that humans need a bond with nature and they try to evoke it by all available means.
GALLERY - SOME PLACE ELSE - WORK IN PROGRESS
The aim of this body of work is to explore the influence of modern, fast pace way of life in a city. The consumptionism era that we live in creates desires, artificial needs, also gives the idea that happiness can be purchased. These attitudes are transferred by means of ads and perfect looking bodies in magazines. All those elements leave a significant mark in our minds such as overly focusing on the past events or dreaming about the future, goods or worrying about one’s looks at the cost of living lives at the moment.