The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera. (Dorothea Lange)

I couldn’t agree more. This statement can be interpreted in many ways. Having some experience with photography, one may be noticing more details in their surroundings, or pay more attention to the mood of a place rather than the detail, or just become more observant in general.

I have always been sensitive to visual messages, not only those coming from art, but also from Nature. And what Nature tells us now has never been more important.

My photography used to be a travel log where I would collect some photographic memories from visited places; it also expressed my admiration of nature, flowers in particular. This probably led to noticing more detail and so making close-up images of various natural subjects, such as rocks or ice.

In recent years, through my images, I have been trying to convey the mood of a place or a subject rather than its actual appearance. Intentional Camera Movement and Multiple Exposure in camera are the techniques which I find very useful in achieving this goal. I also like working on a theme, as this gives me a defined purpose of making images.

At the moment, I am involved in several photographic projects. One is to capture the beauty of glaciers, bring them closer to us, make them more familiar and evoke stronger feelings of the need to protect them. To do this I travelled to Vatnajökull National Park, the largest ice cap in Iceland, and to the UNESCO site of Ilulissat Glacier in Greenland.  I wrote some articles about my encounter with glaciers in Iceland. One article is published by the Artists and Climate Change Forum [3].

In 2021, one of my images from a glacial cave in Iceland was shown in the Manchester Science and Industry Museum during the on-line exhibition of the Science Photographer of the Year, organized together with the Royal Photographic Society. The message of the image is to connect the history of climate trapped in the ice of the glacier with scientific methods of modelling the climate changes over the millennia.  

My website’s gallery “Ice and Light” shows a selection of my images made in Iceland and Greenland. 

Another project started during lockdown, when my photography was restricted to the close vicinity of our house. For some time now, I have been creating a small meadow around the house, and my observations of the biodiversity the meadow has been bringing prompted me to start the project. On the west side of the house, the meadow glows with warm colours in the setting sun. The view is stunning and the colours hot. My purpose is not to show all the wildflowers in their detail, but to convey a feeling of warmth and happiness the meadow, even such a small one, can bring.

It is well known that not only woodlands, but also grasslands can trap carbon. So, there is another benefit in addition to helping some recovery of biodiversity. In November 2021, I published an article [2] on this project in the ICM Photography Magazine, special environmental issue, created to bring active awareness to environmental concerns through photography, coinciding with the COP26 Climate Change conference in Glasgow. My website's gallery "Sun in the Grass" shows a selection of images resulting from this work.

Recently, I have been playing with colour and shape to produce abstract images representing interconnections. Some of the images are shown in the galleries "Relationships" and "Geometries of Colour".

 

 

Barbara Bogacka (Basia) 

Associate of the Royal Photographic Society

 

Publications

  • Responding to seaside rocks. Visual Art. The Magazine of the Royal Photographic Society Visual Art Group. No. 162, Issue 1, 2023.
  • Why do I push the shutter button. ICM Photography Magazine. No 9, March 2022.
  • Biodiversity in My Garden. ICM Photography Magazine. Special Environmental Issue. No 7, November 2021.
  • Melting Goddess of Fertility. Photographing Icelandic Glacial Caves. Artists and Climate Change Forum, May 2020.
  • Ice and Light. ARPS Distinction Panel. The Journal of the RPS Creative Eye Group. No 81, January 2020.
  • Breiðamerkurjökull. The RPS Travel Group e-newsletter No 44, March 2019.
  • Icelandic Adventure. Travel Log. The Journal of the RPS Travel Group, Issue 80, December 2018.

 

 

International Awards

  • Image “Sleeping Fox turned to Stone” shortlisted for the Close-up Photographer of the Year 2022 in the category of Intimate Landscape.
  • Image “Glacial Veins” shortlisted for the Close-up Photographer of the Year 2021 in the category of Intimate Landscape.
  • Image “Fossil Air Trapped in Ice” selected for the RPS Science Photography of the Year 2020 Exhibition.
  • Image “Crying Glacier” among finalists of the Close-up Photographer of the Year 2020 Challenge One Colour Frame.

 

Exhibitions

  • "Silent Arctic" at the Abstract Rhythm and Blue Notes Summer Exhibition (3D Virtual) 11 July - 1 October 2023
  • "Elation" at the Find Your Voice 3D Virtual Summer Exhibition 26 June - 1 September 2023      FYV - Summer Exhibition - 3D virtual exhibition by FYV | art.spaces | KUNSTMATRIX
  •  "Autumn Colour at Ladykirk". Royal Photographic Society Scotland Exhibition 2023/24 
  • "Sinfonietta in Red - Rondo".
    Edinburgh Photographic Society Members' Exhibition 2023. The Lord Caplan Trophy for the Print showing the most innovative use of colour in contemporary photography. Link
  • Photography Now. The Brick Lane Gallery, London. 26 April - 7 May 2023.
  • "Tranquil Moments of the North Sea".
    Edinburgh Photographic Society Members' Exhibition 2022. Best Panel of Prints (The Centenary Cup).
  • "Hidden Treasures of an Ice Cave".
    Edinburgh Photographic Society Members' Exhibition 2021.  Best Set of Projected Images (The St Vincent Trophy).
  • "Fossil Air Trapped in Ice". 
    Science Photographer of the Year 2020. The Manchester Science and Industry Museum, 12 February – 2 May, 2020.

 

 

 

© Basia Bogacka
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