Why We Create — 03 Max Miechowski
Why We Create is a series of five interviews with global photographers in an attempt to discover the deeper layer, drives, and motivation behind their work. We strive to bring forward the moment of realization, in which the meaningfulness of the profession is unveiled, leaving no doubt in the chosen path. In this collaboration with Open Doors Gallery, London, and the founder Tom Page we decided to speak with selected artists presented on the platform. Offering two perspectives, the photographer’s and Tom’s, who carefully chooses art to highlight, we gain a better understanding of what attracts a viewer in an image and why the specific moment becomes immortalized. Max Miechowski is a London based photographer who explores
photographic storytelling through portraiture and documentary forms. The revelation is of a subject’s inner, genuine self-presentation through the photographer’s perspective and interpretation. The act of identifying a stranger as someone the viewer can relate with, offering a gift of connectedness while increasing the recognition of oneself in the other, is one of the mediums Max delves into. With the shift in an approach to the subject and expansion of his topics of interest, Max offers an additional angle - researching people through a documentary photograph, capturing the moment, but more so an authentic story happening at that moment which unfolds as a narrative from the photographer’s perspective.
In collaboration with Open Doors Gallery
@odtakeovers @odprintsales
The photographs we discuss in the interview are also available as prints in the Open Doors Gallery website.
We speak with Max about large-scale printing and custom framing, which he recently started to examine. We discuss the Helter Skelter photograph and the main shift in Max’s technique and approach. Max speaks in depth about his latest series, A Big Fat Sky, and the desire to get closer to his childhood memories going back to the British East Coast, “I saw a kid around the same age that I was when we used to go on holidays there. He had the same mullet I used to have and seemed transfixed by the water, looking for crabs.”
Helter Skelter
What is the print you would emphasize as your favorite from Max’s works? How do you think Max’s technique or aesthetic changed since you first encountered his work?
So when we started working with Max, I had always assumed that it would be a portrait that grabbed my attention. He has such a warm and gentle approach that this enables him to unlock people; they reveal something of themselves in each frame. In fact, it was his Helter Skelter print that I have become besotted by. Max has been working with Parkside Studio in London to perfect his prints, and the time they have spent testing together has really made such a difference. It might only be a 10% improvement on before (or less), but wow! It has made all the difference. The colours are almost fluorescent and leap out at you. And particularly with this image, in a large size, it is so beautiful. You also catch much more of the details at this size. The onlooking mother. The slumped ticket attendant in his pink box. The untouched backdrop. It somehow takes us all back to our childhood. It has proven one of the most popular prints since its launch earlier this year.
Max's portraits will always be an important part of his projects. He does that better than most. But what is so exciting in my view is the development of his landscape and detail work. He builds up such a rich fabric to his stories and cleverly binds them together with a distinctive style and colour palette. I know he is working on some mind-blowing long term projects. I just can't wait to share and exhibit them. Watch this space.
— Tom Page, Founder and Director of the Open Doors
Helter Skelter
90 x 70 cm
Edition of 10
Gicleé print on Baryta Photo Rag paper
Signed by the artist
‘My work centres around being outside, exploring new places, and meeting new people, and the majority of this year has made that really difficult. Fortunately, this has given me an opportunity to focus on different things for the time being and to look elsewhere for inspiration and creativity.’
Why We Create?
Hi Max, thanks for agreeing to collaborate on the project Why We Create. Pandemic led creators towards examining new grounds and researching new topics.
This year has obviously been very strange and frustrating for everyone, and I’m sure it’s affected creatives in a lot of different ways - it’s certainly put things into perspective for me, which has been both inspiring and challenging at times. My work centres around being outside, exploring new places, and meeting new people, and the majority of this year has made that really difficult. Fortunately, this has given me an opportunity to focus on different things for the time being and to look elsewhere for inspiration and creativity. Besides shooting a lot of digital work around the house and chipping away at a new project in-between lockdowns, I’ve been spending a lot of time writing - something I hadn’t really done before. It’s given me a great perspective on my previous work, and I can see how it will help to shape and inform my work in the future.
Tell about your exploration of printing and framing processes. What do you think these skills add to the final result?
I’ve been exploring large scale printing and custom framing, which has really helped to give my work a new depth and presence. As obsessed as I am with the photobook, I think that images are at their best when printed and given a spot on the wall - it places so much emphasis on the single frame and allows the subject time and space to breathe. Experimenting with different sizes and paper types, as well as custom framing, has allowed me to find what best suits my work and how to get the most out of the images.
What, in your opinion, is the most profound emotion that you experience, which drives you to continue working on projects and create?
My work often relates to themes of connection, mostly between people and their environment and the reciprocal influence they have on each other. Naturally, this leads to a lot of self-reflection while making work, and that time allows me to consider my relationship with the people and places around me. Ultimately, whether I’m making portraits or landscape photographs, I feel very connected to what’s right in front of me - I think it’s this feeling that keeps me heading back out with a camera and is what I’m slowly trying to unpack through writing and research. I’m not necessarily looking for answers to anything in particular, but am simply chasing this feeling of connection and hoping to capture images that evoke a similar feeling in the viewer.
Do you feel your approach to photography changed with time?
I think that my ideas about photography and my approach to it are shifting all the time, and I hope it stays this way. Of course, there are common themes that have run through my work over the years, but learning how to use photography as a tool to communicate something that can’t be easily put into words, takes time and patience. A lot of my work has focused around chance encounters with strangers - operating on very loose themes, to begin with, in the hope that a more clear narrative will eventually come to light. Although this is an exciting way for me to work and is something I am still very curious about, I have felt at times that the resulting projects can lack the depth and thoroughness that I long for in a story.
‘The idea of capturing a portrait in a fleeting moment with a stranger is interesting, as the picture obviously outlasts the moment, and the meaning of that image can shift and move with time, context, and perspective (a great responsibility for the photographer). It becomes interesting to consider how much of the subject is really portrayed in the image, or how much of myself is projected onto them.’
What is the latest development in the subject matter or technique as compared to your previous projects (the short interaction with subjects before taking the photo)?
The idea of capturing a portrait in a fleeting moment with a stranger is interesting, as the picture obviously outlasts the moment, and the meaning of that image can shift and move with time, context, and perspective (a great responsibility for the photographer). It becomes interesting to consider how much of the subject is really portrayed in the image, or how much of myself is projected onto them. I have recognised how easy it is to force our own ideals and ideas into a photographic project and to come away with images that are more often about ourselves than they are about the ‘subject matter’ - although this can initially seem like a failure, it is, in fact, a great insight into our perception of the world at that moment, and how we relate to it photographically.
With this in mind, my most recent body of work has involved revisiting and photographing a number of people over a longer period of time than what I’m used to. It’s been interesting to see how these multiple encounters, as well as giving the work and the process time to breathe, have influenced how the work is unfolding. I feel like I’m edging closer towards something deeper in my practice, and I look forward to discovering what that might look like.
What are the two episodes you can share with us, which were the breakthroughs for you in the realization of your voice and vision - of becoming an artist, a photographer?
An important moment for me was when I realised that I could make interesting images of what was directly around me - I didn’t necessarily need to travel to somewhere exotic or construct a dramatic image in the studio. I became interested in looking more closely at the things I had previously taken for granted; my neighbours, the local community, little details on the street. This gave me a great opportunity to experiment photographically while telling simple stories that resonated with my interests outside of photography.
Within my most recent project, A Big Fat Sky, I was able to explore memory as a theme of connection, rather than just working geographically. This felt really new and exciting for me, and it allowed me to make deeper connections between physical space and our emotional responses to it. I feel that my voice and vision is evolving all the time, and this recent project has left me feeling very inspired about how my work might unfold in the future.
‘When I came across the fairground, where this photograph was taken, I felt that a shot of the Helter Skelter was too much of an obvious image for the series, so I only took a single frame. Even in the early edit of the work, I overlooked it. It was only after spending more time with the images and writing about them that I recognised its significance in the story.’
The photo The Helter Skelter captures ordinary people: parents in action, busy, watching their kids who are undoubtedly enjoying themselves. The image juxtaposes the mundane and the cinematic beauty of the place. The name of the image in our culture is an extended metaphor for numerous themes. What does Helter Skelter mean to you in connection to the image?
When I came across the fairground, where this photograph was taken, I felt that a shot of the Helter Skelter was too much of an obvious image for the series, so I only took a single frame. Even in the early edit of the work, I overlooked it. It was only after spending more time with the images and writing about them that I recognised its significance in the story. The fairground has been there for generations, managed and maintained by the same family - I remember going there as a kid, and it really hasn’t changed. With this series being as much about memory as it is about the place, Helter Skelter became a simple metaphor for time and the influence it has on both of those things. It’s always fascinating to me to find a deeper beauty and meaning in places and objects that are so often overlooked.
A Big Fat Sky, your new series, in which you decided to explore the British East Coast, going back to the places of your childhood memories. What is the difference (visually or emotionally) between the way you remember the locations compared to the perception during the last visit?
I remember a lot of the coastal towns feeling much larger when I was a kid, but going back, they just felt dwarfed by the vastness of the sea and the sky - something I don’t remember noticing before. I guess you take that stuff for granted when you’re little and focus more on what’s right in front of you.
One particular place I was excited to revisit was Wells-Next-The-Sea. I have vivid memories of this place, mostly of crab fishing on the pier, but also of having my first can of Dandelion & Burdock on the little steam train that takes you to the beach.
On my first trip shooting for the project, I arrived in Wells in the evening as the sun was just starting to set - I parked up and went straight to the pier. Amazingly, I saw a kid around the same age that I was when we used to go on holidays there. He had the same mullet I used to have and seemed transfixed by the water, looking for crabs. It was a profound feeling watching him form the same memories I was now chasing. It felt like I had stepped back in time somehow, or just outside of it for a second. This project also reminded me of the connection this country has to the sea. Somehow, it can be easy to forget that we’re actually just a little island, and so much of our national history and personal experiences have been influenced by that.
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