Photographer: Milosz Wozaczynski

Can you tell us a little about you? Photographer, retoucher, sometimes videographer, k een motorcyclist living in Brexitland but originally from Poland.

How and when did you get into photography? In my primar y school days there was a youth photog raphy club, which I started attending. Soon I found out that it is a thing I really like doing so I started to tre at it a tad bit more seriously... To the ex tent that I ruined our washin g machine when I spilled some fixer all over it. No need to say my parents were not happy. Unfortunately though tha t youth club was shut down later on and I was left without all that necessar y equipment. At that time I lived in Poland and the countr y went into a bit of turmoi l after com-munism failed which rendered us pretty poor at the time with no money left for hobbies like photograph y. I was left without a darkroom, with my only broken camera and no money left to do any thing with that... I wa s only shooting pictures occasionally, when someone asked me to. Much, much later when I finished Uni and sta rted to work I finally had enough money to buy myself a pro per camera (at least that's what I thought as it wa s a digital dslr) and ever y thing came back to me. I started sho oting ever y thing I possibly could but couldn't find what I really wanted in it. I was working as a teacher and one of my students was an international fashion mo del. We started talking about photography and soon enough w e set up a portrait session. Just after shooting th e first few pictures with her I knew that portraits were what I really wanted to do. And almost 20 years later her e we are...

What does photography mean to you? I don't really know. It looks good... sometimes ha ha.

Please briefly describe your photography style for our readers. What I like to think is that it looks like Ir ving Penn mixed with Monty P y thon.

Where do you get inspiration from? From Ir ving Penn and Monty P y thon... On a bit more serious note though I'm inspired by human beings, faces, bodies, surroi ndings and my own stupid ideas.

Do you think in advance what you want in the pictur e? Depends what sort of time you mean. I always think before pressing the shutter but sometimes I'm impro vising with no precise ideas before the session. If I see the model for the first time and I don't know the chara cter of the person I usually strug gle with a plan b ut someti-mes I have a long term plan and am looking for mode ls to fit in.

Studio, on location or both? For portraiture in general I much prefer the studio or atelier. I don't mind shooting on location but it's ver y limiting sometimes. Espec ially with nudity haha.

Would you consider yourself a hobbyist or a paid pr ofessional? Both at the same time. Paid professional sounds a bit like a pure craft with not much art involved. And it usually is just that (probably 99,9% of the time). I took many commercial jobs in photography; I'm also worki ng as a retoucher and all my experience can only co nfirm that. Then when it comes to hobbies – it means that you are passionate about that. After all those yea rs earning money on photography I'm still passionate though an d it is my hobby, however I'm only passionate about a small area of the whole photography thing – fine art port raiture on film. I don't feel like a paid professio nal even though all my income comes from various fields of imaging.

What has been your most memorable session and why? It would be easier to say which ones I want to for get, haha. Most of the sessions resulting in good pictur es are memorable for me but if I had to choose – pr obably the session for Hasselblad Masters 'Evoke' album. Why t hat one – because it was like 10 sessions all shot in 3 days. With the crew we all stayed together in those 3 day s, eating , shooting , having one long party and fun all at the same time. Basically fantastic time spent with a bu nch of awesome and creative people. But it was also one of the most difficult and exhausting sessions I ever did.

Nikon or Canon? Favorite lens? I don't give a flying f... about the brand. I just like good looking things like Rolleif-lex or Hasselblad, or big cameras like my 8x10” lar ge format – possibly it's a syndrome of something h aha. When it comes to lenses – it would be Tessar 360:4.5 on 8x10” but I don't care that much about that. It jus t needs to be sharp enough to see the subject right and soft enou gh to make the image pleasant.

What is one piece of advice you would like to offer a new photographer looking to start their own busi ness? Don't do that. Find another job... Not that I want to discourage anyone or hate working as a photograp her but there are much better paid jobs out there in which you don't need to work that hard. Doing that, you w on't lose your passion for photography and you will be much b etter off financially. But if you think you still w ant to go for that... hmmm... prepare yourself for long hours, sh itty wages, tasteless clients and constant insecuri ty with not much of a reward. But when there is one, it's usual ly a ver y ver y good one. The main question is if th at reward is not possible to achieve as a hobbyist? It absolutel y is.

https://w w w.wozaczynski.com @wozaczynski