Our role as photographers is to capture a world that others can't see, and in this process, we leave a little bit of us in every photo that we take. In a way, every single one of our photographs is also a portrait of ourselves.
In this series, A World That Others Can't See, I ask fellow photographers to talk about an image from their portfolios in order to discover the stories behind their work and to learn about the person behind the lens.
For the seventh post of the series, London-based documentary, portraiture and travel photographer Hanna-Katrina Jędrosz (pronounced Yen-drosh) talks about an image that she took on the border between Poland and the Russian enclave Kaliningrad for her project The European Green Belt.
Hanna-Katrina says: “There is a moment near the beginning of every project when I experience the rush of being on a roller coaster at the moment where it tips over the first drop. It’s frightening and exciting. This photograph was taken at one of those moments.
On the border between Poland and the Russian enclave Kaliningrad, I took this image in a deserted spot deep into the nature reserve which creates the northern banks of the Vistula Lagoon in Poland. It is one of the many fringes of the European Union, and at the moment the photograph was taken, I felt as though I was on a personal edge. The wind had been sucked out of my sails and I was trying to find my way again.
Days before, as I arrived in Poland, my maternal grandmother died, back in England, at the age of 97. Simultaneously, my paternal Polish aunt was admitted to hospital with a life threatening infection. I had been offered a last minute assignment which had delayed the start of the trip. Tensions were high, and there was a pervading sense of forces playing out beyond my influence. Everything was budgeted for and planned, and time itself now convulsed, an origami time-shifting sense of loss, of life feeling suddenly smaller.
I try to coax myself to see the land rolling out in front of me with engaged interest.
I walk on my own along the forest road. Pine forests, mossy floors and bird song hold me on either side. My instinct is to lie down in the moss, fold into the land and sleep. There is a tension between finding the moment to photograph and the strong desire to disappear. As I walk towards the border, a border I know will be there, I feel a sense of prickling solitude. Left right left right, my thoughts do acrobatics into the canopy.
I reach the national boundary, look along its straight fence up and over on either side to my left and right. I am in a shallow dip in the land and the road goes no further. Suddenly visible up to my left I catch sight of a patrol vehicle on the crest of the dunes before the beach.
Carrying a large Mamiya slung across my body, I have a spark of paranoia that a border guard might mistake my old camera for a gun. My Polish grandmother’s stories are present - of the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 and her covert Underground Army operations. This is where my imagination often leaps to. I walk towards the beach with the camera in plain sight, hands at my sides, and smile as I step past the vehicle. I gesture a friendly wave towards the border guards who sit inside. They stare at me, no particular smidge of authorisation or foreboding.
My heart is racing as I go past, to the beach.
I am blasted by sub-zero Baltic winds and dazzling sunlight. A cold shimmering paradise, the navy waters of the Baltic roar.
To my right is the fence.
Stop.
I take some photographs and walk towards the tideline. Turning back, my eyes follow my spiralling footprints up the beach, to the dunes. The guards now stand high in the marram grass watching me.
I lift a hand in a still wave. I take a few more photographs to show I am busy and am no trespasser.
The walk back seems shorter.
A few weeks later, as I arrive at the last stop on my route before turning West and homeward, the news comes that my Aunt has died. It has all gone horribly wrong.
Two matriarchs, not known to each other, living in different spheres, both held their ground until they could not. I experience a sense of my familial architecture being reorganised.
There’s an image of a forest and a sprawling family nestled amongst roots.
--”
From the project The European Green Belt © Hanna-Katrina Jędrosz
Hanna-Katrina, I can’t thank you enough for sharing with me such personal and beautiful anecdote of the moment when you took this image. I’m breathtaken! If you want to see more of Hanna-Katrina’s work, visit www.hannakatrina.co.uk.
If you haven't read the previous posts of this series, you can check the whole series here. I hope you liked this new post and stay tuned for a different photographer each month!
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