Michal Matrychowiec is a young talented photographer from Poland, who finished his studies at University Of the Arts in London with an Diploma in 2007.
From 2000 Michal has been working on photography projects, creating thematic author’s cycles. Parallely, he collaborated with numbers of magazines such as Futu Magazine, Metal Magazine, Androgyny Magazine, and A4 Magazine for which he produces fashion and general photography editorials. Apart from that this multi-talented artist creates video works, and different kinds of three-dimensional projects.
Aged only 22, Michal really caught our attention with his outstanding, absorbing fashion editorials.

When did you first realise you wanted to be a photographer?

The idea of me becoming a photographer seems very vague to me now. It almost seems as it was a very natural occurrence, which just happened gradually. My childhood memories are rather blurry, however the thing I am certain of, is as far as my consciousness reaches I was really enjoying taking photos. I suppose it must have been some need of expression from the very beginning, although I didn’t really now how to. I could estimate I became this little man taking photos at the age of around 6-7 years old. Obviously these were strainless years of my childhood and so I did not consider anything I did having to do with professional career and earning money. It was rather a child’s play as any other (although I never fancied games that children in my age has and this has stayed the same ever since), and perhaps I have not really grown up much in this matter. And so when the time came for me to decide what shall I do in my life it was quite a natural decision to think of photography, and so the decision was made. I was fed up with having to spend my time, which is not infinite after all, on things that did not give me any joy. Or maybe I just could not consider doing anything else, maybe as R.M.Rilke called it, it was this ‘inner need’ I had.

How has your childhood surroundings (your upbringing) affected your photographic style?

I’ve always preferred to play all by myself. That probably taught me when I was a kid a way of a photographer, who has to be in the end sort of a person that appreciates solitude. My parents are economists and many generations back, all my ancestors were rather affiliated with sciences than the arts. Because of that I was not really expected to become an artist of any kind, and I was taught to count before I knew how to read. I suppose the only artistic education I received were piano lessons, which I was given from the age of 8. I really enjoyed it, although I have not ever considered becoming a musician. I’ve heard a few times that my photography is like music, so maybe there is something in the years spent at the piano that affected what I do now. Surely music is an important part of my life, I cannot say whether it would not be if I hadn’t started playing the piano though.

What sorts of photography do you do? Which is your favourite and why?

It is really hard to differentiate between types of photography. I try to have my own style. And although I can say I am fashion photographer, I don’t want my fashion photography too look only as it would be promoting the clothes well, although I am conscious it is the main purpose of it. Also portrait is something that I am very interested in, although sometimes I am unsure if I can call a portrait, a piece of photography, which with the use of other person is probably portraying myself much more.
Perhaps at this point as a portrait photographer I am still very naïve.
What I enjoy the most though is darkroom printing and using photography purely as a graphic discipline and so creating graphics, obviously with use of the light, and parts of reality which I capture, to create an image that is not existing in the real world. Here I like the use of something which I like to call a photo-collage, putting in all the roughness of creation of human hands, also using photography as an archival source of objects, other pictures, some unnoticeable details taken from reality to use them in my collages in an other context.

What is inspiring you at the moment? And how does inspiration come to you or do you seek it out?

I source my inspiration from everything that surrounds me. The street that I walk down, my room, the book I read, the music I listen to (although I prefer to believe that the music is just a suitable background for the idea to be born, without which nothing will happen or maybe will happen differently; if you favour, I could say it is comparable to the lubricating oil in the creation’s mechanism).
Inspiration process is like growing something. You grow a larva, firstly it’s seeded by a tiny observation. It carries on growing feeding on your flesh, which bears all your experiences accumulated, one day it will grow enough to come out of your body and become a butterfly. Sometimes only a fly. But in any case I believe that you have to sacrifice part of yourself for something else to be born. It is all according to the chemical law, that nothing in the nature disappears. You have to give something in to get something back. It is what Nicolas Bouvier describes as overbleeding yourself, to the point when you have nothing less to give away.
I would lie if I said I don’t seek out the inspiration. However, it never works for me. For instance, I was given theme of an issue of one magazine and asked to prepare a photographic material. I was trying to do the research and think the theme over without any results. One night I gave up I was awfully tired, so I just sat down in that mental hibernation state, where you don’t really think of anything. I looked forward, saw a copy of Thomas Mann’s “Zauberberg” on the shelve and thought: that’s it!