Jun19
Lighting the Way
Beautiful models with perfect makeup do not make good photography by themselves. At least not for me. What does? 
A photographer who understands the fundamental power of light. Aneta Kowalczyk is among those photographers, in my opinion.
What is it with Polish photographers? A while back I profiled the excellent Andrzej Dragan, another Polish photographer with an enormous amount of talent. Now, I discover Aneta Kowalczyk.
Kowalczyk herself is a former model and her work could reasonably be described as fashion photography - except that I think it transcends that label. As you view it, picture for a moment that rather than a model you are photographing your father, your neighbor, you sister, your friend.
The fact that Kowalczyk photographs primarily gorgeous women (as well as some men) is incidental, in my view. Her understanding of lighting and the power it conveys is as evident here as it would be had she been photographing her mother. And it’s the skills I appreciate most as a fellow photographer.
Kowalczyk also shows great skill with composition.
A long time ago I made a gigantic discovery: I am not the greatest photographer of all time. Not even the second greatest. No, my photography is nurtured by what I’ve seen through my eyes. A lot of that lies directly in front of my lens. And a lot of it lies in the work of others.
I am inspired by the great work of other photographers. I pull a little something from each of them. And although I make it a point never to copy another’s style - my own photography reflects a partial amalgamation of so much other work I have seen. I like what Kowalczyk has done here. It gives me some great ideas, and I hope it will for you, too!
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Fashion, Studio, Light, Portfolios
Andrew Ferguson Jun 19th 2007 at 05:24 pm 1
“What is it with Polish photographers? A while back I profiled the excellent Andrzej Dragan, another Polish photographer with an enormous amount of talent. Now, I discover Aneta Kowalczyk.”
Discovering multiple brilliant photographers in the same niche or country or subculture seems to be an internet trend these days.
I find that Russian photographers hanging out on Livejournal are the ones that consistently blow my mind. I don’t know why there’s such a high concentration on them on LJ, but they’re damn impressive.
One such example:
http://xomato.livejournal.com/445785.html
Christopher Scholl Jun 19th 2007 at 05:43 pm 2
Good to know! I guess it’s another great, little-known benefit of the Internet.
Aaron Jun 22nd 2007 at 09:52 pm 3
Bearing mind, of course, that Andrzej Dragan (by his own admission) alters or flat-out creates most of his compositions in Photoshop. Other than the fact that they’re both Polish, it’s like comparing apples to oranges with these two, though I love both of their work for different reasons.
Andrzej Dragan’s was one of the few photo portfolios that made me simultaneously gasp and think “how on Earth did he do this?” He sells some sort of a howto thing on his site, but it was more than I was willing to spend. So much of the success of his light painting technique is owed to his wonderfully textured subjects.
Photography is essentially based on light, so mastering light must necessarily be a great step toward mastering photography.
Christopher Scholl Jun 25th 2007 at 11:17 am 4
Sorry for the slight delay in posting your comment, Aaron. Your post somehow fell into my blog’s spam trap - yikes!
You’re definitely right, of course. These two photographers are quite different from each other and impressive for for very different reasons. What I like about Dragan’s work, for example, is that although it’s “Photoshopped”, it’s really a fairly subtle and sophisticated alteration even while preserving the obvious drama in his images. I think some viewers, for example, might not recognize the Photoshop alteration at all. That, for my money, is what makes it so effective.
Andrew Ferguson Jun 25th 2007 at 01:07 pm 5
Andrzej Dragan is intense and impressive.
I agree with Chris, it’s a subtle form of photoshopping. I know multiple people who believed that his photos were untouched.
And yeah Aaron, his portfolio totally made me do the jaw-dropping how’d-they-do-that bit when I first saw it. I was floored.
Ed Hardy Mar 5th 2008 at 07:06 pm 6
Awesome. Aaron is great.