1) Can you tell us something about you?
My name is Kuba. I am 30. I was born and raised in Poland. I love basketball.
2) Where do you live and work now?
Me and my girlfriend have just moved to Milan. We decided to try our luck somewhere where the winter is more friendly and the food is
better than in Poland. I also wanted an experience of living abroad, making your home somewhere else. I’ve never done it before. Milan is where I am based right now. I obviously work all over the place.
3) When did you start to think about photography?
Both my parents are engineers and they pretty early thought me how to use the camera in terms of all the technicalities – exposure, focus, lenses etc. I was six. I knew how camera worked, but I didn’t think about it as mean of expression. Then, when I was 15 my grandfather bought me a box of about 50 expired Russian rolls of film. I started shooting like crazy, repphotographying NBA games from the TV screen, taking portraits of friends and snaps of street scenes. I fell in love and never fell out.
4) Where your inspiration comes from?
It comes from everywhere. I think it is important that photographers don’t stick to the photography ghetto and find their inspiration also
elswhere.
5) What does it mean for you streetphotography?
I try not to distinguish between the genres. Your photography is your photography. Period. Garry Winogrand is street photography, the
Sartorialist is street photography and Philip-Lorca diCorcia is street photography as well. All of them do their own thing, sometimes they do it in the street, sometimes they do it somewhere else. It’s not about the street, it’s about them.
6) When you take a portrait, what is important for you?
To make it believable.
7) Do you think it’s important to follow a school to learn how to shoot?
It’s not neccessary to follow a school, but I think you need to know your history and what grounds you are standing on, you need to know where you come from. You can learn it from the books, or from the web, or from school, but you should know it. And I don’t mean name dropping, I mean understanding that photography is not only about making images that look nice Of course you can be a whizz-kid, a naive prodigy that knows nothing about anything and doesn’t care but it doesn’t happen to a lot of people.
8.) What’s the photo you want to take and you never did?
I’ve never been to New York. I’d like to confront myself with this city.
9) What’s your photo-mission?
To document. I believe that, apart from all the rest, taking pictures is like making a great gift to a person like you living 50-60 years
later. I try to do it well. I try to cover all the spectrum. Taking pictures of my girlfriend, portraits of important people and new
season’s fashion I feel like I am doing very same thing.
