Ep 006: Magdalena Wosinska
A SHOT: To start, can you describe this photo that we’re talking about?
MAGDALENA WOSINSKA: I have been focusing on photographing my mother for the last, I don’t know, half a decade, and that was just a moment in time in one of my visits, going back home to Arizona where I was really trying hard to pay attention about keeping my camera on me around my family, as my mother was slowly aging. I just wanted to start documenting more and more of her life and capture her beauty and her life while it’s still here. So that picture was just one of the many in a series that I’m working on.
Do you remember why you were there that time?
It’s funny because when you move out of your parents’ house, you kind of move out and if you have a phone call, that’s enough. Talking to parents is enough. Or seeing them on holidays was enough. And I think that was a time where I was visiting her because I started realizing how necessary it is to visit them as they’re getting older and see them more often. It’s so special for them to see their children. I was there just for a regular visit. Luckily Phoenix, Arizona, at the time when they still lived there, was a six-hour drive from LA, so I could pack up my car, put my dogs in the car and go see her, and my dad.
What’s your setup for when you’re taking a photo like this?
Well, that probably was something where I would set everything up, and then I would have my dad push the button because we’re lying down and the camera is directly above us. But I’ve definitely shot photos in funny ways. Like, lying on a bed, I would tape [the camera] to a ceiling fan, spin it around, put it on a self-timer and whatever frame happened, that’s what I would get. There’s all sorts of ways of shooting self-portraits with the subjects that you want to be shooting as well.
How quickly do you take this photo? Do you know this is what you wanna do?
Yeah, 100 percent. I’ll see something. I’ll see a moment. I’ll see where the light is. And then I’ll automatically be like, “Okay, let’s do it.” My mother, over the years, has become my muse. So she’s kind of used to it slash super flattered, and I love taking her pictures — my father, as well, because it makes them feel youthful and beautiful. So I’ll ask them to do something, like, “Hey, Mom, I know it’s really hard to get down on this sheep-skin rug on the floor, but if I help you, can I take a beautiful picture of you?” And the cool thing is, she cooperates. She doesn’t cooperate with anything else I say. She’s quite stubborn, especially when I want to give her a bath, but she loves getting that photo taken because I think it reminds her of… She sees my passion in it, and it reminds her of her passion that she once had before she had a stroke. She had a stroke about 12 years ago and is partially paralyzed and completely changed her personality and her abilities. I think [getting her picture taken] just kind of makes her feel validated. And that brings so much joy to me as a daughter and as a photographer, as well.
What was her passion?
My mom was a psychology professor. She was a total badass and so full of life. I remember growing up… You know, we grew up in Communist Poland, very limited resources, food, clothes. You only ate meat when you were friends with a butcher. So my mom would tutor the butcher’s son French lessons so we could get meat. We grew up in that kind of environment, but no matter how limited we were, my mom would always bring people together with food and wine. We would be learning different languages in our house with all the friends in the neighborhood and trying to learn how to play piano. She was always the center of a group bringing people together with so much lust for life and seizing the day every day and just doing so much.
She had four daughters. One of my sisters passed, so she raised three daughters and had a full-time job, as did my dad who’s also a psychology professor. She was the department chair of psychology in Kraków at one of the oldest universities — I think from 1390. Copernicus went to that same school my mom taught at. It was pretty badass. She was and still is a complete badass. But she’s just a different woman now. I very much so regret that, when she had a stroke, I was around 24 years old; it was so long ago now that I don’t remember what she was like. Recently I just found a photo album that I haven’t seen in 30 years. I started to relearn who she was by the pictures, and it has been extremely moving and emotional and incredible because I’m starting to remember who my mom was before that time.
Is that something you found before or after you started the project of taking pictures of her?
After. So as I started photographing her, she would have these little glimpses of memories start popping up from her childhood. I think with certain people, when you have brain damage like a stroke, you have short-term memory loss, but you start to remember your childhood. So my mom would have these little blurbs of her memory come up from her childhood to the point where she wrote a 76-page book called Childhood in Red that I recently had translated into English. This happened in the last couple years, and as I was photographing her, these little stories would start popping up more and more and more. So my uncle and I convinced her to write this book, and she wrote it three or four years ago. I got it translated a few months ago. And I hope to make a feature film based off of those short stories. So in my desire to document her life and make this film, I needed to do research, but her memory is so all over the place that it’s really difficult to know the timeline of things.
During Covid actually, my parents got sicker. My mom was diagnosed with cancer this year, and we had to move them closer to family. So we moved them from Phoenix, Arizona, to Denver, Colorado, where my older sister lives. And in the process of moving out of our American childhood home of 30 years, we went in the attic, and I found this album in November of last year. All of the sudden, I mean, I looked at that photo album of her from the time she was a 14-year-old girl to her getting her doctorate to college, marriage, kids, losing a child, to having more kids, to immigrating and losing everything to come to America for a better life for her kids. I just sat on my couch for two weeks crying looking at these pictures of her. The soul of her is so strong and incredible, so the least I can do as a photographer and as a daughter is continue that journey because someone in her life, herself included, documented and photographed her throughout all those times, and it’s amazing.
How would you describe her as a photo subject?
She’s funny. She has a very dry sense of humor, and all she talks about is sex and World War II so people can pay attention to her in the room because she has paralysis of her even vocal cords, so her voice is very monotone. She’s very much not able to be a part of things, so when she’s a photo subject, she shines. My mom always wears pink. I just organized her closet while I’m here taking care of them this week, and there’s, like, 12 pink sweaters and undershirts and pants and socks. She wants to be seen. She always was the center of attention because she was, like, a power woman, and now that she doesn’t have the ability with her intellect and her voice, she...wears pink for reason. I never actually thought about that until I’m speaking those words right now. That’s a loud color. You want people to see you. So as a photo subject, she loves the camera if it’s done quickly and precisely. Luckily, I shoot fast, and I’m very direct.
What does she have to say about the photos you take of her?
You know, oftentimes I show her, and she laughs, and she’s like, “Oh, I look good there.” Or she kind of laughs and gives me a smirk and has no comments, and then five minutes later, she forgets that I showed her the photo. So those moments are me capturing her and her being my muse and her having a quick moment of joy feeling good taking it and seeing it and then forgetting that it exists, but I will always have that negative.
How did you first decide that you wanted to start documenting her?
Honestly, I don’t remember when I started photographing her. I just remember I had this realization as a photographer: I’ve always photographed my friends; I’ve always photographed my environment and real people, and I was like, “The most important thing is my family.” It’s right in front of me. But when you grow up, you look at fashion magazines and beautiful people that are young and youthful. No one paid attention to older people and put them on the cover of magazines, or maybe they did, and I just didn’t know about it. But I never thought about that being beauty until one day I just was like, “Wait, this is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met. I have to capture her as often as possible.” One day it just clicked. I don’t know what happened, but I was like, “You’re my muse. You’re everything. You should be on the cover of every magazine.” You know what I mean? I’m obsessed with my mom. I love her. She’s hilarious. She’s the most annoying person I know too, but she’s got such a fucking beautiful mind, and it’s kind of trapped right now. She can’t express it, so I think with pictures, I can help her express herself.
What do you think we can learn about your mom from looking at this photo specifically?
Well, you can tell that she’s got style. And she loves her family. She’s just present. And she wants to be with her kids, and she really cares. She’s just like a loving, beautiful person. Everyone’s going to interpret a photograph differently, right? But that’s something I see, and there’s a huge connection between us. It’s the fact that she’s willing to come into my world by just laying down in that photo. And that’s she’s very affectionate and always wants to embrace me or tickle me or hold my hand or be excited about being a part of something with me.
Is there anything in this photo that you see of yourself in your mother here?
My jawline.
Yeah, there’s definitely the physical resemblance that you see. It’s the first thing that I noticed when I looked at the photo. You know very clearly that this person is your mom.
Yeah, it’s funny because I saw some photos from the ’50s in that photo album, and there were four girls laying with their heads touching on the ground, and as I flipped to the picture, I stopped, and I looked at the girl in the far right corner, and it was me. It was me. One hundred percent. Except I was born 35 years after that photo was taken. And it was so crazy because I never saw my mom and I look so much alike. It freaked me out kinda, you know, seeing yourself in another person.
Let’s talk a little about the pose in this image. Is this something that you set up, or was it spontaneous?
Very spontaneous. I said, “Let’s lay the way that we’re laying.” But the way that we’re kind of laid into it is just natural. It’s not too posed. I’m not telling her to move her chin left to right or whatever.
How important are the hands?
I think it’s very much who my mom is, that embrace. All of this was natural. It wasn’t really set up. We fell into that moment, but when you look at it, it’s like she’s always been holding on to me, and I’m holding on to her. Like, she’s risen me up, and I’ve risen her up, so the hands kind of resemble that in my eyes. I’m always gonna want some sort of affection from my mom. No matter how old I get, I’m always gonna be my mother’s daughter. That affection and connection you have with your mother never fades, at least for me.
A lot of the photos of your mom, she has this great quirky energy. Often there’s a smile on her face. She’s sometimes giving you the finger. But this photo feels a bit more still. I think this might actually be one of the photos where she looks most serious. What do you like about this moment?
I love all the other photos where she’s quirky and stuff, but I think she’s trying to not show her weakness, you know? Here, she’s just vulnerable. And she’s just with me. And I think maybe it’s because I’m not on the other end shooting the photo, so she’s not performing for me. Instead, she’s in it with me, you know what I mean?
The next question I was going to ask was about vulnerability. What do you like about the vulnerability in this image?
I just love the fact that she trusts me. That’s the thing about being a photographer. It is 100 percent trust. Because when you go up to someone and say, “Can I take your photo?” they don’t trust you to take their photo. That’s what it is. It’s trust. It’s a very important feeling, emotion and word in my life. There’s just trust there.
To get back to the hand part of this image, the point of contact at the necks with the hand shows a lot of vulnerability and also a tenderness. How important do you think that specific point of contact is in the gesture of this image?
It’s funny because it wasn’t really thought out. It just happened, but if we want to pick it apart, it is very tender. The neck is a very tender place to touch anybody. And it’s just soothing, like your mom would rub the back of your neck when you’re a little kid. So it’s kind of like going back to you’re always your mother’s daughter.
What does inserting yourself into the photos you take of your mother add to the images?
Two things. I want to know that I was a part of that moment. Being a photographer, always photographing everything around you and all the adventures and the fun and the sadness and the world and all that stuff, you’re taking the picture, and yes, you were there because you were behind the camera, but when you put yourself in the picture, I think of what I would want to show my grandkids some day and be like, “This is when we all were doing this.” And I’m there too. Because people don’t remember that we’re there by us taking the pictures. So this is another moment in time to be like, “I was there with my mother.” This is this moment we had. It wasn’t just a tender moment I had with my mother by me taking a picture of her. I’m in it with her.
And even more recently — because this photo was taken a couple years ago — very, very recently as my mom is much much weaker and much more vulnerable, I started taking photos of her when I’m bathing her, when I’m changing her diaper, when I’m combing her hair and putting curlers in her hair. And I’m starting to shoot the self-portraits with myself in the frame because I am doing that. I’m doing the action of bathing her. So I put myself in it because it’s real. I’m watching my life as a little movie with my mom, so when these moments happen, I want to document them.
I noticed that when I share things publicly — I do it in small doses, but when I do — when I’m in the picture and people that know me as a photographer or follow my work, it’s so much more relatable to them than just seeing my mother. People might not get it. And it’s been extremely a beautiful journey to see how many people have been inspired by seeing the love I have for my mom and how many people have written me letters and notes and comments saying, “This passion you have with your relationship with your mom reminds me that I need to call my mother today,” or “reminds me that I need to be more tender with my parents,” or “I one day will have elderly parents too that I will need to take care of.”
So I like veering into the tangent of self-portraits, and I want to make sure that we’re talking about this image specifically. But can you talk abut ownership of a photo like this? Like, I assume, like you said, some of your work is you setting your camera up in odd places with a self-timer, but something like this is actually you having to hand the camera off to someone else to take the photo.
Yeah.
What does it mean for a photographer to consider an image like this, in which they haven’t actually clicked the shutter, their own?
I’m very, very confident in the fact that if I set it up, I created the environment, I chose the light, I framed it ,and I literally had the other person press the button, they’re just a human tripod. Not to disregard, but they’re not creating the moment. They’re not creating the composition. They’re pressing the button for me because I didn’t have a way to do it. So I feel like the ownership is 100 percent mine because it was my choice in that exact moment to take that photograph. And it’s gotten so blurry nowadays, you know? It’s gotten so blurry because also so many people are photographers because everyone… It’s way more accessible to people with digital cameras and iPhones and things like that. So even if it’s your friend that’s taking the picture, and you set it up and you know what you’re doing, but they can kind of think that they’re a photographer because they have an iPhone. I’m like, “Honey, you didn’t get naked and swim across that river to get on that glacier to shoot that self-portrait. Just press the button.” I takes a lot of work to always remember to take pictures. It is a full-time job. But I’m lucky that I’m super addicted to it. And I’m passionate about it. But like, my eyes are always open. I’m always paying attention to my surroundings and paying attention to detail, and I think that’s where there’s a difference.
One thing that I’ve always liked about your photography is that there always seems like there’s no fuss to it. You’re just there with your tool, which is your camera, and you take a picture of what’s in front of you. But with a photo like this, to me, it feels more considered than that. And I’m kind of looking at the pose and the gesture of the hands and the quality of light. Do you feel like taking a photo like this is different in any way than how you usually work?
No. I like how you describe my work. It’s very much no fuss. It’s like why do people take it so seriously. It’s such a beautiful, fun thing. It’s so freeing. It’s so exciting. It’s such an honor to be able to take pictures, and there shouldn’t ever be a fuss. So, no, there’s no fuss. It’s so simple. That’s why the pictures feel real because they are. You just literally take the picture. It takes a fucking second. That’s all it is to me. It’s moments captured in the now that will never be repeated again.
So you’re the type of photographer who seems to always have a camera on them. You’re always ready to take pictures. How do you think being that type of shooter affects a photo like this?
I’m very lucky that I am obsessed with taking photos. It’s like an extension of my arm, like my camera’s with me. And it affects me in a way that’s very positive because when I see something, that triggers… I see something, and I make it a picture in my head, and it goes into this little filing cabinet. And if I don’t have my camera on me, I will regret it. I will regret it and remember it for weeks. Like, fuck, I didn’t have my camera on me. It’s like an obsessive-compulsive disorder almost, but it’s with taking pictures. But I’m really excited that I always have it with me because when it comes to taking pictures like this, it just happened. It’s like, “Oh, this looks great. This is great. Let’s just do this.” Everything is super impulsive. Since I’m an impulsive person, that feeds my impulse so I can feel more calm.
So I don’t want to neglect the photos that you’re taking of your father as well. What’s different about an image of your father than an image of your mother?
I’ve never really taken that many pictures of my father as I have of my mother because she was the one that got sick 12, 13 years ago. So her [mortality] seemed to be fading faster, and I just wanted to make sure that I was capturing her life while it was still with us. And then just 34 days ago, my dad almost died of a heart attack and had a five-percent chance to live. So I’ve been taking care of them the last two weeks in Denver, Colorado. Not only am I photographing my mother now, but I am watching my father, who was her caretaker, almost lose his life and then come back like a miracle, literally a miracle. I started realizing like, “Oh, my god. There’s so much fragility to his life too.” He just had so much more energy than her for so long. I’ve always kind of photographed him because he would even ask me, like, “Hey, take a picture. I need it for this or this or this.” Or I would take pictures of them together.
Then just this last couple weeks, I was like, “I need to make sure I’m documenting both of my parents equally,” and actually today, I fully dressed him up, and we went into this field, and he rolled out of his little wheelchair and walked up with his cane, and we did a fake fashion photo shoot, and he was just ecstatic. The amount of energy he had when we got home because I took cool photos of him was so fulfilling. He was a very cool, handsome dude that would dress in some cool outfits and was just a cool badass psychology professor in Warsaw in the ’60s. So he’s got this spirit and wit to him, and I could see that today when I photographed him. He just became, like, a 24-year-old college-kid professor guy. And it was so fun how happy it made him to be put into this situation that you get dressed up and put on a pedestal and you’re the subject of a photograph. After I had that experience with him today, I was like, “Oh, my god. I cannot believe I didn’t do this more often, sooner. Thank god it’s starting.” Because I did it a little bit but not like today. So today’s a very special day because that happened with my mom, and all of the sudden, it just clicked so much with my dad.
Is the character of the images different?
Yes, my mom is funny and goofy. My dad is serious and regal and cares what he looks like. And I’ll tell him to suck in his gut, and he will. And he also wants to make his own fashion choice. I’m like, “Tuck your shirt in, and wear a belt.” He’s like, “No, that’s not cool.” And I’m like, “No, Dad, it’s hip, and it’s in style.” Then he’ll do it in his trousers, and he’s like, “Okay, you’re right. It looks good.” So we did this little photo shoot today, and we’re going to do a little bit more tomorrow. And he’s like, “Maybe tomorrow we’ll mess my hair up and we’ll, like, comb it to the side.” And I was like, “Fuck, yes, we will Dad,” and it’s cool.
You often shoot portraits of celebrities. And I know a lot of the time when we’re photographing an actor or a musician, we can find ourselves chasing moments with them that are very fleeting. I’m thinking especially of how you photograph men. There’s a softness and an openness to a man’s face when you shoot him that isn’t necessarily how they’re presenting themselves at all times. But you have a way of catching them when their guard is down or just catching the right moment. But with this photo of your mom, I assume the look in her eyes here isn’t something fleeting. It’s just how she always regards you. How different is it to work when you know the moment you’re looking for his here to stay?
What do you mean by that?
Like when you’re taking pictures of a celebrity, we’re often kind of chasing something. But in an instance like this, you’re working in a way where you know what she’s going to give you.
Well, I do, and I don’t. The interesting thing is with celebrities, I just remind them that we’re both there for a reason, and we’re super equal, especially when I photograph men. Like, I’ve been a tomboy my whole life. I grew up skateboarding and playing in a metal band and all that stuff, and I can talk to you about muscle cars and amplifiers and all that crap, so for me, photographing guys, it’s like they can drop their guard because we’re just into the same stuff or we’re the same people at the same level. I never put people on a pedestal because we’re both just as important as we should be to each other. So I try to make those moments also not seem like I’m chasing them, even though I have five minutes with people like Nicole Kidman, you know what I mean? But that’s different too because that’s photographing women.
But with my mom, it’s like my approach to photographing my family is like, if I know I’m there for a couple days but I have an idea to shoot the picture in the beginning of my trip, I make sure I do it in the beginning of my trip because if I put it off, I might have missed that moment. And if I miss that moment, you can’t re-create it, and it will never be repeated. That’s one thing like… those moments are fleeting. If I see something, it’s like do it now because if you don’t do it now, it’ll not be the same later, and you’ll regret it. So that goes back to that whole thing of impulse.
I listened to an interview with you where you said that you feel like you’ve essentially been taking the same picture since you picked up a camera and started shooting skateboarders at 14 years old. Where do you think you can see that in this image?
It’s the crop. It’s right at our torsos. I’ve literally shot that photo because that shows you how close I get to people and how intimate I want to be with them and maybe how loud I can talk. If I’m too far away, they can’t hear me. If I’m close enough, I can be having a conversation, where people can drop down their guard and we can actually be connected. So it’s me being three feet away from them, for 20 years.
You know, it’s funny because when I moved to America, I didn’t speak a word of English. I was super shy. I felt very outcasted, and I didn’t communicate with people well. When I first started taking photos when I was 14, I shot self-portraits because I was too shy to approach people doing something I didn’t know how to do well and I wasn’t good at it. It’s funny because now I will go up to anybody if I feel like there’s a moment I want to capture. It’s given me such a sense of confidence to be able to express myself in the last 23 years that I’ve been taking pictures. That same photo, getting taken all the time, that’s only three feet apart just shows you how I’ve matured into my self-worth.
What about this photo feels like a Magda Wosinska photo?
I mean, as time goes by there’s gonna be so many more pictures of my mom, and well, self-portraits is one thing; me photographing my mom’s another thing. And it’s natural light. I don’t ever light my photos. Sometimes I’ll shoot it with an on-camera flash. So I think the thing that feels… that makes this feel like a photo that I took is it’s just a natural, nice little moment in time.
What do you think Magda 10 years ago would have to say about this photo?
I was 27 and playing in a metal band. I’d be like, “Where’s all the longhaired tattooed guys?” No, I’ve always had a connection with my mom, but I don’t know if I understood the importance of capturing her spirit.
So how does it feel to review your work like this?
It’s very interesting because I’ve never dissected my pictures like this except for when I was first starting photography and my teachers would put a picture up on the chalkboard and be like, “Tell us everything about this composition,” and I’m thinking that I worked toward making a composition to work toward making a picture. And now it’s so different because I don’t work toward. It just happens. Maybe impulse is my biggest gift. It might be so annoying to all my friends around me, but maybe it’s my biggest gift because that’s how the pictures are born.
What’s something unrelated to photography that’s been feeding you creative lately?
Just very, very recently, I don’t know if it’s feeding me creatively, but I just got into surfing. I suck. I’m terrible. Terrible, terrible. But I think about it, and I’m like, “I wanna get good at this.” When you’re in the water and you’re looking up at a sunset and the water is just this silver color and it reflects off of the sky and you have no idea what you’re doing but you’re just barely learning how to read the waves and you’re like, “I still can’t paddle fast enough to get this wave and ride it in,” there’s something super inspiring about those moments of being there alone and without a phone to distract you or anything else. That’s been very new, like, as of three weeks, that’s been inspiring me.
Interviewed on November 6, 2020.
(This transcript has been edited for brevity.)
Links:
Magdalena Wosinska
Photos of Magda’s father for Human Recreational Services