The PS-series

Many responses received of fervent readers of this blog are desperate calls to see examples of his work.
Especially the recent “PS-series” gets many requests.

Attentive readers have noticed that there is a strategy in the choice of subjects this blog is having. For example, a serious subject like “War and peace” is followed by a rather frivol subject like “Researching phenomenon’s”. A subject on photography is followed about the latest on the puppies and the Princess.

Due to the insisting requests, this strategy is now expanded with the occasional presentation of an image from the “PS-series” and its background story.
The management hopes to quell the threatening uprising with this decision.
For more pioneering photography we have two other websites available.
Links at the end of this blog.

Today this image from the “PS-series” is presented:



The pictures for the “PS-series” were made at Punta Marquez in Mexico during the months of August, September and October of this year.
The composition of the images was done in Nowy Sacz, Poland, late October.
The first public presentation was at Paris Photo in Paris in November 2006.

The “PS-series” was made at the same location where the sequences, the “VISTA-series” and the videos were created. On the West coast of the peninsula called Baja California in Mexico, which is situated south of San Diego, USA. It is a barren and deserted stretch of coast where nobody lives. An endless and wide sandy beach bordered by a desert. Often staying there is made unpleasant by a strong and merciless Northwest wind from the immense Pacific Ocean. It is a place not without danger. Rattlesnakes and scorpions have to be avoided. And hurricanes batter this coast in late summer making it extremely dangerous to be there. As happened this year when a catastrophe and possible death caused by a passing hurricane was only a hair’s-breadth away.
But it is a place where civilisation and progress have not come yet. Where hardly anybody dares to go. One could stay there and not see a human being for 3 weeks. The only company are the pelicans, the seagulls and the coyotes.

This location was discovered in 1979. For 7 years each winter it was visited for long periods of time to make the sequences. Later, many winters were spent to make the "VISTA-series" and the videos. Always this same location Punta Marquez.
The protocol is to go with enough provisions to stay at the location for about 20 days.
Followed by one day and night in town, which is a two hours drive, to purchase new provisions and communicate with home and office. Next, it is another 20 days focused on pioneering in photography. This goes on for 3 to 4 months when it feels it is time to be among people again.
Life at Punta Marquez is as simple as it can get. Light is from solar energy. Bathing is in the ocean. Interesting books to read as entertainment. Limited food. No alcohol. Nothing with sugar. Daily meditation and yoga. Walking and running. A very disciplined life with a strict and rigorous schedule repeated every day for months. All is focused on creating. Making new images. Pushing deeper into the unexplored fields of photography.
This is not an easy life. There has to be an extremely strong motivation to be able to live and work in this way. But it is fascinating, intriguing, challenging and rewarding.
It has always resulted in new work.
And this because being in retreat at Punta Marquez offers the opportunity to have a merciless auto-confrontation resulting in an intensified inner growing process.

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For more photography of Michel Szulc Krzyzanowski, click on:

www.szulc.info
www.themostbeautifulpeople.org