Recently seven of my images – all of the ones I submitted! – have been awarded in Inspiration Photographers competition. Inspiration Photographers is an association of best wedding, family and portrait photographers and filmmakers in the world!
Each of my photos received either ‘Exceptional’ or ‘Masterpiece’ ratings.
I’m so happy that my purely documentary family photography work resonates with so many people and colleagues. Thank you!
Natalia de Barbaro ’s book ‘Przędza’ is already available. Natalia, both in person and through her writing, is like spa for my soul and I can’t wait to get my own copy of the book when I travel to Poland this week!
Here are a few of the photos we created together during a photo session in January organised by Wydawnictwo Agora. It was a great, time with a beautiful – inside and out – person. Thank you Natalia.
Książka Natalii de Barbaro „Przędza” jest już w sprzedaży – dzisiaj premiera online! Natalia – czy to w kontakcie osobistym czy też poprzez jej książki – jest jak spa dla mojej duszy. Nie mogę się doczekać kiedy będę mogła kupić swój własny egzemplarz książki podczas podróży do Polski w przyszłym tygodniu!
Oto kilka z moich ulubionych zdjęć zrobionych w styczniu podczas sesji zorganizowanej przez Wydawnictwo Agora
In January I had the privilege to photograph Natalia de Barbaro – an amazing author and the woman who inspired and guided me, in more ways than one, to take a huge leap of faith and redesign my life, for her upcoming second book ‘Przędza’ (‘Yarn’).
We met at her home on the outskirts of Kraków, Poland. The moment I saw this window I also saw this picture in my head. It is a variation on the theme of weaving – dreaming up and creating a life for ourselves that we really want to live, a personal world which we want to inhabit. It shows Natalia the way I see her – a wise and kind sorceress, a woman you want to be your guide.
Natalia is a truly beautiful human being and that was obvious to me from the moment I opened her first book ‘Kind companion’, through her workshop ‘A Room of One’s Own’ which I attended, to the day when she stood in front of my camera. She creates a space where women can feel both seen and held, supported and free. Natalia herself is vulnerable and strong, playful and provocative, considerate and authentically herself.
Thank you Natalia for choosing and trusting me to photograph you, I hope that you recognise the person that you are in the images we created together.
‘Yarn’ will be published on 8th March 2023 by Agora ( https://wydawnictwoagora.pl/ ), and can be pre-ordered now through Empik ( https://www.empik.com/przedza-de-barbaro-natalia,p1360144353,ksiazka-p )
Photo session organised by Agora
Make up: Paulina Brzostowska
IG: https://www.instagram.com/paulinabrzostowskamakeupart/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063532866569
W styczniu miałam okazję – co ja piszę, przywilej! – sfotografować Natalię de Barbaro do jej nowej książki „Przędza”. (Książka ukaże się 8 marca 2023, nakładem wydawnictwa Agora). Spotkałyśmy sie w domu Natalii pod Krakowem. W chwili, kiedy zobaczyłam to okno zobaczyłam też w głowie to zdjęcie.
Jest ono wariacją na temat tkania, tworzenia, śnienia własnego świata, czyli tego, o czym jest „Przędza”. Próbowałam pokazać Natalię tak, jak ją widzę w mojej głowie – czułą pzewodniczkę i mądrą Wiedźmuchę,
Natalia jest dla mnie osobiście bardzo specjalną postacią. Poprzez swoją pierwszę książkę „Czuła przewodniczka” oraw warsztaty „Własny Pokój” zainspirowała mnie nie tylko do zadania sobie kilku istotnych pytań ale przede wszystkim do wsłuchania się w moje własne odpowiedzi i wprowadzenia w oparciu o nie fundamentalnych zmian w moim życiu. Rok po naszym pierwszym spotkaniu czuję sie jak zupełnie inny człowiek w innym (piękniejszym!) miejscu w życiu.
Dziękuję ci Natalio za Twoje zaufanie i ma nadzieję, że rozpoznajesz siebie w zdjęciach, które razem stworzyłyśmy.
“Your photos have been published in a magazine”. What an amazing thing for a documentary photographer to read! As a family photographer based in London but photographing all over the world, including in my native Poland, I love being able to reach new people in this way.
It felt amazing to read this but even better to be able to say his to my clients, who trusted me to document their lives. Now they can see themselves, the families they have created, their love, celebrated in this way, on six pages of an actual paper magazine!
A feature article with my images has just been published in the June issue of one of the most influential and definitely the coolest lifestyle magazines in Poland. (You know, the kind that treats women as people and doesn’t insult our intelligence by their content choice 😊) I’m still smiling typing this.
Below is the full original interview in Polish (English translation coming soon!)
You can also view and download it as a PDF HERE
Rozmowa z fotografką Agatą Szymanowicz
Rodzicielstwo. Czy to nie oklepany temat na zdjęcia?
Równie dobrze możemy powiedzieć, że miłość i szczęście są oklepane, czyli najfajniejsze rzeczy w życiu. Dla mnie na pewno fotografia rodzinna nie jest nudna, zwłaszcza, że przyzwyczailiśmy się do oglądania macierzyństwa w wersji glamour, a ja pokazuję je bez filtra. Takie, jakie jest.
Trochę przyzwyczailiśmy się do instagramowej wersji rodzicielstwa – dzieci są czyste, uśmiechnięte, glut im z nosa nie wisi. A przecież wiemy, że nie tak to zawsze wygląda.
Moje zdjęcia pokazują codzienność, ale staram się, żeby były artystyczne, żeby było na nich widać piękno tej codzienności.
Może chcemy, żeby nasze rodzicielstwo było idealne przynajmniej na zdjęciach?
Może, ale dążenie do perfekcji, albo spełnianie czyichś oczekiwań jest bardzo męczące. Mam wrażenie, że zwłaszcza my, kobiety mamy dużo wymagań wobec siebie. Chcemy być idealnymi matkami ale po drodze gubimy to, co najważniejsze. Sesje dokumentalne to okazja aby przestać się starać być kimś innym i przyjrzeć się – z uśmiechem i czułościa – jakie jesteśmy naprawdę. Dla mnie to właśnie liczy się w macierzyństwie i to chcę przekazać poprzez moje fotografie. Odpuśćmy sobie, a zobaczmy magię w tym, co mamy, co dzieje się obok nas. A może także w sobie?
Jak wygląda twoja praca?
Podczas sesji na jeden dzień zmieniam się w fotoreporterkę rodzinną. Spędzam z rodziną cały dzień, od momentu obudzenia się dziecka, aż do chwili, kiedy zasypia, i fotografuję wszystko co się wydarza. Bez pozowania, uśmiechów na zawołanie. Idealne podejście dla tych, którzy cenią fotografię ale nie lubią być fotografowani.
Rodzice i dzieci nie czują się speszeni twoją obecnością?
Wszyscy szybko się przyzwyczajają i zaczynają mnie traktować jak koleżankę z aparatem. A gdy dziecko zaczyna pozować, odkładam aparat i czekam aż mnie zignoruje. Czasem najciekawsze kadry przychodzą pod koniec dnia. Zmęczenie, zasypianie, płacz, oczywiście jeżeli dziecku nie dzieje się krzywda – to dla fotografa momenty pełne emocji.
Jaki jest odbiór fotografii?
Bardzo często pojawiają się łzy wzruszenia. Jeśli to tylko możliwe zapraszam klientki do mojego studia, pokazuję im film z naszej sesji. Często dokładam do tego głos, fragmenty rozmów nagranych w ciągu dnia. Mamy zauważają na zdjęciach prawdę, mówią: “Och, to cały mój syn, a córka rzeczywiście robi takie miny”. Jest też zdziwienie, że w ciągu jednego dnia może się wydarzyć tyle fajnych momentów. Dzięki zdjęciom mogą spojrzeć na swoją codzienność z dystansem. Przecież w tym chaosie dużo jest radości, miłości, wzruszeń, tylko nie mamy czasu tego zauważyć.
Rodzice, zwłaszcza mamy są często zdziwione, że robią w ciągu dnia tyle rzeczy. Widzą, jak ciężko pracują i ile z siebie dają. Jest ogromnie ważne, żebyśmy byli na zdjęciach razem z dziećmi. Kiedy one później oglądają fotografie, szukają na nich nie tylko siebie, ale i rodziców. Niech widzą, że byłyśmy obok, całowałyśmy, pocieszałyśmy, karmiłyśmy. To dla nich przekaz – byliśmy z tobą od początku, kochaliśmy i wspieraliśmy.
Dlaczego wybierasz czarno-białe zdjęcia?
Czarno-białe kocham za ich ascetyczne piękno. Patrząc na nie zwracamy uwagi na kolor bluzki czy otoczenie, na nim najważniejsza jest twarz. Taka obróbka wydobywa też często dramaturgię oświetlenia. No i są ponadczasowe. Ale oczywiście, jeśli zdjęcie aż krzyczy o kolor, to takie robię.
Pomysł na fotografię rodzinną pojawił się kiedy sama zostałaś mamą?
Nie, fotografowałam dzieci i rodziny już wcześniej. Gdy miałam aparat w ręku nie ciągnęło mnie do pejzaży czy architektury tylko do ludzi. Moja droga do macierzyństwa była długa – cztery lata, leczenie, kilka prób in vitro. Teraz jestem szczęśliwą (i zmęczoną!) mamą dwójki dzieci. Myślę, że moje zmagania pomagają mi teraz docenić, jak piękne są te codzienne momenty z dzieckiem.
Można powiedzieć, że dokumentujesz życie rodzinne?
Tak, ale ja bym jeszcze powiedziałam, że dokumentuję miłość.
As a London-based child and family documentary photographer I absolutely love capturing natural, candid moments in an artistic way.
I have been thinking how to caption this, something interesting, original…
The only thing I have managed to come up with is:
Yyyyeeeeeaaaahhhh!!!!
Throughout the year I received 10 individual image awards and two story awards!
All that added up to:
#1 UK Photographer of the Year
#1 UK Storyteller of the Year
#6 Photographer in the World
And you know what? It feels just as good as it looks on ‘paper’.
I worked really hard over the last year so now I’m just going to sit down, stare at my titles and be happy 🙂
This is Reportage: Family is a super prestigious community where you can find the best documentary family photographers in the world. Before I started submitting my own work I always followed their awards with admiration and awe. All my photographic heroes and mentors are there! So to finish the year – the very first year when I submitted my work – like this is absolutely huge for me!
Would you like to have your family captured in a similar way, with all the emotions, fin, chaos and craziness?
Please contact me to book in 2022. I photograph mainly in and around London (most of my clients come from Highgate, Hampstead, Kensington, Chelsea, Richmond, Mayfair and Central London) but I am also available for sessions outside London and even abroad!
Recently I was interviewed for This is Reportage Family podcast.
It was fun talking with Alan but I still haven’t mustered the courage to listen to it! SO if you do, please let me know how it went 😊
Here is where you can listen to it:
This is Reportage Family website: https://thisisreportage.com/podcast-episode-95-this-is-agata-szymanowicz/
iTunes/Apple Podcasts at https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/95-this-is-agata-szymanowicz/id1486156622?i=1000543592721
Spotify at https://open.spotify.com/episode/6zpenIBECT2fBLjnrLFTzN?si=fb2237e478da4fde
Google Podcasts at https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cDovL2ZlZWRzLnNvdW5kY2xvdWQuY29tL3VzZXJzL3NvdW5kY2xvdWQ6dXNlcnM6NzIyNDkwMzE5L3NvdW5kcy5yc3M%3D
YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCMsRQbGsvw
Amazon Music at https://music.amazon.co.uk/podcasts/6a9f116e-a0bc-493a-a8c9-de900fb237de/This-is-Reportage-Podcast (or just ‘Ask Alexa’ for the This is Reportage Podcast).
This image was taken at the beginning of the pandemic, during the first lockdown. I had managed to order a garden swing only days before the whole country ground to a halt, and it kept us all sane for the next three months. My kids – almost three and almost seven at that time – were using it daily and it provided us all with a much-needed respite from the failures of home-schooling and just being stuck in our four walls.
At the beginning of the lockdown, I sat and wrote down some priorities for myself:
– Look after our mental health and wellbeing.
– Strengthen my relationship with the kids.
– Concentrate on photography.
The last thing was very important to me as my job – the job I love so much – got cancelled without any notice. So I set off documenting our life in lockdown (as I know many other photographers did). My kids soon figured out that I will do a lot and sacrifice a lot to get a good shot and that if they play their cards right, they will be able to get away with much more than usual. They would ask me: “Mummy, can we get naked and play with the hose in the garden? You can come with us and take your camera!”. It was March, 8 degrees C. I said yes!
On that particular day my goal was to get a dynamic picture of their swinging antics. I wanted to get quite a lot of blur so I used panning – I followed the swing movement with my camera. I was using my Canon 5D MK III with a 24-70 mm lens (at 38mm). The settings were: ISO 200, f 13, 1/30th sec.
It took quite a few tries, and a degree of luck, to get the final result. I have since then upgraded my camera to Canon R5 and, with the eye-tracking focus, it would probably be much easier to get a shot like this!
I turned the image to B&W – I love B&W, it’s my go-to for family documentary photos. I also wanted to make the image a bit more dramatic and get rid of the distracting orange jackets.
This picture became a symbol of the pandemic for me. Or maybe not so much the pandemic, but our resilience in the face of it. How, in the midst of darkness, chaos and constant flux, we can find stillness and joy.
The home-schooling wasn’t a complete failure in our house after all – my children managed to teach me something!
The image is now on our wall (150 cm wide!), a daily reminder of what’s important in my life.
Camera: Canon 5D MK III
Lens: Canon EF 24-70 f/2.8 L II USM
Settings: ISO 200, f 13, 1/30th sec
We are a bilingual Polish-English family living in London.
There are some well-documented advantages of bilingualism. It’s supposed to positively impact kids’ creativity, cultural awareness, social and listening skills and overall cognitive development.
All these are great but for me, as a mother of bilingual, Polish-English kids, the best thing is when one of my children says something embarrassing and totally inappropriate in public and no one can understand that except me.
My personal, real life examples, include:
“Mummy, this gentleman is pregnant!” (I could see where she was coming from but still…)
“Mummy, are you having a pee or a poo? Have you wiped your bum well?” (In public toilet.)
“My willy is sooo big! And it’s sticking up. It’s my best friend!” (Note to self – we need to socialise this kid more. Easier said than done in a pandemic!)
At home, we follow One Parent One Language (OPOL) approach. I speak with the kids in Polish, their British dad – in English, and Maja and Lenny switch between languages when talking to each other, depending on the context and whether they want others to understand them or not. (Cunning from the very young age!)
The method helps children acquire both languages at the same time and is particularly helpful if only one parent speaks the minority language. Which is the case for us – we live in London and my husband’s Polish is limited to ordering various beverages in bars. And by various I mean two 😊
Thanks to OPOL, when they speak English, Maja and Lenny do so with my husband’s Oxbridge accent, rather than with my Polish one. (Nobody thinks Polish accent is cute, it isn’t French!)
Below is my very personal account of OPOL’s pros and cons, as well as some tips for raising bilingual kids.
The bottom line is – raising bilingual children and sticking with One Parent One language method can be tough sometimes. But in the end, it is completely worth it. And often rather funny 😊
As a family fine art portrait photographer, one thing I love most about photographing my London clients is learning more about them. Getting a glimpse into their lives, a sense of what kind of parents, and people, they may be. It is a little like peaking in form a dark street through a window into a well-lit family kitchen. I can’t see the whole house, or the whole day this family had. Only a small frame in time and space. But that one frame is so interesting and inspiring!
Here is one such a frame, a window into a life of one of my clients (turned friend!)
“The thing I’m learning about parenting is that it’s completely unpredictable.
Battling through the unexpected tidal wave of post-natal depression, after a long journey to get pregnant and then life-threatening delivery.
Or the unnecessary pressures that culture places on me to provide every experience possible for our child.
Or the fear of my failure as a mother or something happening to my girl.
Parenting is completely unpredictable. And being that I crave organisation is all areas of my life, being a mother forces me to think differently. We are all uniquely different.
Can we figure out parenting solely through reading books or seeking advice from those we trust? Although I value what I can learn through those means, one cannot learn everything about raising a human being through that alone. It takes time, patience and resilience.
Through becoming a parent I’ve discovered more of myself then I ever thought possible and how I desire to be a better person. I want to be what I am teaching to my daughter. I never thought parenting would provide me with a second chance to take a deeper look at myself, to change and grow.
Parenting is a gift. I am reminded of the many stages of development I had to learn in order to become a functioning adult. The innocence of a child and ability to call it out like they see it. I can’t hide behind the smoke screen I’ve built up in my adult life. Instead, I am invited into participating in someone’s life, watching them grow, change and develop over the years; it is a true privilege.
I want the very best for Zahrya, but how can I give her my best if I don’t try and take the opportunities to make myself better too? Parenting has become a two-way street of giving and receiving: learning together; laughing together; fighting together; explaining a lot; being as honest as I can and letting her know I will ALWAYS have her back. She can never lose my love.
And here I thought parenting was all about rules and making sure she learns how to find her way in society, I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Parenting is completely unpredictable.”
“It was during one of the most traumatic experiences of my life when I realised what being a parent truly meant to me. I was in hospital over the Christmas and New Year period and then some. My son was just two and my daughter four. I was in a lot of pain even with the strong painkillers but could navigate it mentally due to my experience of the births of my two children. This was a fortuitous side effect of being a mother in this scenario; learning to lean into the experience and not to fight it. But it was a difficult time for me, not only because of the pain and the fact I was bedbound, but because I was so used to being physically able to care for my children. And here I was, unable to give them what was second nature and entirely taken for granted. I would not see my children for several days at a time. This made me feel my pain more. When my children were at my bedside, I would feel the pain noticeably ease, my focus and energy entirely on them, almost forgetting my physical self. To me, parenthood has come to mean erasing limitations and conquering restrictions in order to envelope your children in your love.”
Which vibe do you prefer – colour of black & white?