It’s 8:00 PM in New York City. October 4, 2014.
Almost exactly 30 years ago (around 2:00 AM in Cairo on October 5, 1984), an old, Russian built Tupolev TU-134 jet landed on the extremely dirty and disorganized Cairo International airport. The flight brought from Warsaw, to Cairo some tourists, some fresh, and some seasoned archaeologists, and a new photographer of Polish Center Archaeology in Cairo - on 2 year contract.
This photographer was me.
At this very moment my completely New Life began.
For someone like me, who is not a trained archaeologist, participating in countless excavations all around Egypt, in Cyprus, and In the Northern Province of Sudan, was a life changing experience. What most of the people read about, or see in the museums around the World, I saw and touched…
Exposure to archaeology and the wonders of the Ancient Civilizations had a profound effect on the way I saw the World. This ‘private’ exploration coincided with meeting and listening to the Great Luminaries of the Mediterranean Archaeology. Nothing is the same afterwards…
The list of the people to whom I have been always deeply indebted for that reason is long, I can’t list them all here. However, I have to express my deep gratitude to a few made my new and improved life possible.
Let me start from Professor Karol Mysliwiec (since 1982 - director of the Institute of Mediterranean Archeology at the Polish Academy of Sciences) who saw my photographic portfolio right after I graduated from college, and incited me to take part in a competition for the position of a photographer of Polish Center of Archaeology in Cairo. Later on, he let me believe, that I proved to be the best in this contest. Also, my deep apologies to him for making a lot of mistakes when I was covering his excavations in Tell-Atrib. In 2005 I visited his extraordinary excavations in Saqqara where he was working on the tomb of Imhotep.
And then Professor Wiktor Andrzej Daszewski (at that time the Director of Polish Center of Archaeology in Cairo - my boss), who showed me ‘how Paradise looks’… when I took part in his excavations in Nea Paphos in Cyprus. For a young photographer like me, who lost his father quite early - he became almost a father figure. We (at the excavations) were all his family, so it was quite natural.
And then Professor Wlodzimierz Godlewski (Warsaw University) and Dr. Stefan Jakobielski (Warsaw University) - thanks to whom I had a chance to feel like a real explorer driving a bit-up Land Rover at their excavations in Old Dongola - Northern province of Sudan - after a 26-hours truck trip across the desert from Khartoum. Surrounded by the desert for 6 weeks at a time (twice) one develops either a profound love, or a profound hatred to the desert. I fell in love…
During my contract in Egypt I met many wonderful colleagues, young and aspiring archaeologists, who in these 30 years have become important figures of Mediterranean Archaeology. Alas, after moving to America I lost active contact with most of them. Let me name at least a few, who were really good friends:
Dr. Stanislaw Medeksza (at that time the architect of the Polish Center of Archaeology in Cairo),
Dr. Ewdoksia Papuci-Władyka (Nea Paphos, Cyprus)
Dr. Grzegorz Majcherek (Kom el-Dikka, Alexandria, Egypt),
Dr. Iwona Zych (currently involved in Berenice Project in Egypt),
Dr. Krzysztof Babraj - thanks to whom I returned to Egypt in 2004 to participate in his excavations in Marea (close to Alexandria) - where from 2005 to 2008 together with my wife Barbara - Architect, were running a preservation mission within the current excavations.
Dr. Zbigniew Szafranski (head of Polish Center of Archaeology in Cairo) with whom I spent many weeks photographing the reliefs on the wall of the Hatshepsut Temple in Deir-el-Bahari (Luxor).
Dr. Anna Poludnikiewicz (Tell-Atrib, Benha),
Dr. Michal Neska - who moved to Ethiopia to run his own excavations (unfortunately died in a very young age).
Barbara Wronska-Kucy - whom I met in Egypt in 1985, where she held a scholarship and as an architect was documenting the excavations and their architectural elements (currently an architect at Bone/Levine Architects in New York City - and my wife).
What the archaeology awakened in a young photographer was the craving for contact with art, with monuments, with the interested people involved in preserving art, and artifacts, or any other way involved in creative processes. Archaeological contact in the Middle east gave me also the necessary experience.
Hence my 10 years contract at Sotheby’s New York, between 1989 to 1999, what gave me opportunity to have close contact with the most important examples of art beginning from the ancient art to the most contemporary. The thrill of having in my hands an unframed pastel by Degas, was incomparable with anything else.
In 1999 I made a faithful decision, to proceed on my own from that time. I started working with the architectural companies and designers shooting the architecture and the interiors. The experience in still life photography shooting for Sotheby’s came useful.
I cater mostly to New York architectural and design companies. All projects are different, all produce their own challenges. There is no routine elements in any of these projects.
Both archaeology and Sotheby’s job sparked the drive to broadening the knowledge, discovering areas, which in normal situations would be ‘off course’.
In my case this led to web design. I started learning that when still at Sotheby’s, but since then I designed many websites. Starting from my own (jmk-gallery.com) I expanded providing websites to the architects, artists, commercial on-line stores. Working with one of them - Creel and Gow (Creelandgow.com) since the Sotheby’s years, became a long lasting professional relationship - I provide both photography as well as web design to this client.
All of that in the last thirty years - today. It’s been an exciting ride. What will ‘tomorrow’ bring?
