To Feel, Again, the Magic: the Photography of Wojciech Piotrowicz

Interview with Wojciech Piotrowicz, of Korsze, Poland

Deanna Piowaty: I so enjoy the playfulness of your photos. You have retained such a boyish sense of wonder and mischief.

Deanna Piowaty: What is it about how children experience the world, how they engage with their environment that you seek to capture? Is there something you would like others to see that maybe we have forgotten?

Wojciech Piotrowicz: I did not decide one day that I will become a children’s photographer. I have to admit though that I feel comfortable entering their world and I feel proficient with showing it to others. Like every adult I know how quickly the childhood passes, how faint the memories it leaves. Childhoods can be so different: happy or sad, full of joy or drenched in fear. Usually they’re made of bit of this and bit of that – but it is always the time of our lives when we are amazed by everything and we discover so much magic in the world around.

Wojciech Piotrowicz: Perhaps I want to save the world of my children for later, so their memories can be fuller than mine? We have so little photographs from the time when we were kids and they are usually from holidays or important events. Perhaps I want to enter the world not accessible to adults anymore – to feel, see, live, to be so carefree again just for a while? The fact that so many take my photographs emotionally proves that we all have a child deep within ourselves, a child that enjoys simple things, a child that has been forgotten and burdened under all our adult affairs.

Deanna Piowaty: Do you consider yourself a storyteller, Wojciech?

Wojciech Piotrowicz: Storyteller in my photographs? Maybe…

Deanna Piowaty: What was your own father like? Distant? Or were you very close to him? Did you feel that he understood and accepted you?

Wojciech Piotrowicz: My father was “invisible”…He taught me nothing, said to me nothing, gave me nothing… Maybe this is why I’m trying to be a good father…

Deanna Piowaty: Yes, I see this. You are parenting yourself. Nurturing the child who was not nurtured. Nurturing the child in others… You are also making sure that you don’t become like him, yes?

Wojciech Piotrowicz: Maybe this is the most powerful thing that [compels] me to do my photographs.