The exhibition is a summary of the plein-air event that took place during the 47th Cho-Jazz International Jazz Workshop 2017 in Chodzież in August 2017. Fifteen renowned and emerging artists working in the field of photography and visual media accepted the invitation to participate in the open-air workshop. Their works are presented at the exhibition: Wojciech Beszterda, Anna B. Gregorczyk, Tomasz Grzyb, Zofia Kawalec-Łuszczewska, Włodzimierz Kowaliński,
Kasia Kalua Kryńska, Zdzisław Mackiewicz, Krzysztof Madera, Jowita Bogna Mormul, Paweł Opaliński, Kacper Spek, Piotr Spek, Jalanta Rycerska, Magdalena Wdowicz-Wierzbowska, and Andrzej Zygmuntowicz.

Jazz and photography, photography and jazz have a lot in common – after all, we are talking about shades, colours, rhythms, divisions, tempo, phrasing, stories and creating something new, creating one’s own vision of musical reality or photographic reality captured in a frame. There are many interpretations of Rodgers’ well-known standard ‘My Funny Valentine’ – each of them brings something new, sometimes disrupting the existing perception, but there is always a common denominator – the THEME/MOTIF invented by the author and presented as a kind of guideline for development, inspiration, an impulse for improvisation. Jazz is improvisation on a theme, a story created by composers and musicians.
We are all familiar with Irving Penn’s photograph of Miles Davis on the cover of the album TUTU – a portrait of the jazz musician.
Or perhaps it is simply a portrait, a portrait of a person, an artist, thoughts, soul, emotions, a portrait of each of us? The author leaves the interpretation to us, reinforced by Davis’ music. Photographs are often compared to a mirror that reflects and simultaneously records reality – but is it really reality? Through the filters of the authors of the photographs, does it not only record their ideas, does it not become an improvisation of reality resulting from time, place and emotional state? Through the filter of the viewer, does the mirror of photography not become yet another image of reality, does it not become an improvisation resulting from time, place and emotion?
We proposed the challenge of creating a ‘Mirror of Reality’ for the 47th CHO-JAZZ 2017 International Jazz Workshop to 15 photographers during the JAZZ FREE PHOTO 2017 National Photography Workshop.
Jazz was everywhere, and so were we – it was a pleasure for us to create ‘mirrors of reality’ together.
We would like to thank our fellow musicians, the workshop organisers and the partners supporting the plein-air event – we hope that our mirrors of reality will be a good introduction to improvisation on the theme of …
Piotr Spek

Chodzież, first week of August 2017, one of the days
A bird tapped its beak on the window sill. Tap, tap, tap. I pull the duvet over my head; it doesn’t help. Still the stubborn tap, tap, tap.
Or maybe it’s because of last night? There was music, singing and… everything else. It was happening, like it does here every day. There are people, real people, and with them there is real life. And there is music, from dawn to late at night. Uneven, hoarse, repeated endlessly, unfinished, and played again from the beginning, and again. And at times fantastic, evoking thoughts and free associations, making your feet move and your body want to dance. It’s time to get up. There are sounds in the corridor, apparently others have already got up, or maybe someone is still wandering around looking for their bed. A quick shower. The bathroom is stuffy from the previous occupants. I also start with hot, then cold, and so on – hot, cold, hot, cold. How good! I wake up quickly, the ice-cold water cooling the effects of yesterday evening. The mirror tells me that everything is fine with me. Life is beautiful! Two floors down, breakfast. A smiling lady in a charming cap on her head asks: vegetarian or meat eater? All washed down with coffee from a heated tank. The day begins! I run to my room, grab my backpack with my gear, go down two floors again, open the door and step into the fresh air. A short walk to the tunnel under the road, the hum of cars. Coming out of the tunnel, I enter the music. It’s everywhere. It’s as if it never stops for a moment. It flows from every corner, louder, quieter, faster, slower. Here guitars, there cymbals, keyboards play the same short motif over and over again, only to suddenly accelerate into a whole melody.
It smells like coffee! That’s what I need. My head is already calm, but coffee, good coffee, is always a heavenly pleasure, just like the music flowing from everywhere. The first sip, how good, the second – even better. Familiar faces appear. Several decidedly mature, cheerful, satisfied. They are the masters, they are the guides here. All around are groups of young people, their faces expressing anticipation,
a little tension, how will today be? Will it be a step forward or will it stand still? And among them are a few with cameras. This is my company. We are to take photos inspired by jazz. It has to work!
From a sunny square with tables serving delicious coffee, I enter a dark abyss. I was lured here by the sound of a piano. The pitch blackness is broken by a beam of light falling on the stage. On it stands a piano, electric, modern. Around it are young people in holiday attire, relaxed. Behind the keyboard is a face I have seen somewhere before. I quickly flip through the folders in my memory. There it is! She was on the cover of an album made by a former student of mine. Back then, I remembered the music more, but now the image and sound come together,
in real life. I take a photo. There is very little light. Behind the piano, there are advertisements hanging on the wall, quite a lot of them, they have to be there, but for a photographer they are visual noise, forcing me to choose a frame without this ugliness. I succeed. I go to the staircase and up to the first floor. I hear a trumpet, and after a moment, other instruments§. I go in. It’s cramped, there’s nowhere to put my feet. I hear the trumpet player’s encouragement: take pictures if you feel like it. I crouch down, squeezing between legs, tripods and cables. Uncomfortable, twisted like a sailor’s knot, I look for the right frame. The lighting is also poor. But I think I’ve captured the tension and emotions resulting from the well-constructed sounds. I move on. Somewhere I hear a lone drum. I knock, but I don’t think it can be heard. I open the door and see surprise on the face of the young drummer. After a moment, he returns to his work, and I to mine. He beats rhythmically, louder, quieter, faster, slower.
And I ‘dance’ around him, catching those moments when they play, complementing each other, music, light, emotions and joy, his, that he comes out and mine for the same reason.
And so, from room to room, from the practice hall to other places where there is music and future mastery is born. Some fight like fierce lions, but I don’t think anything will come of it. The desire alone, even when combined with passion and diligence, is not enough. You can hear the sounds repeated stubbornly, again and again, and still it doesn’t play. Perhaps there is a lack of spark, which is not given to everyone.
And now dinner, chatting, another coffee, sometimes something else. And music everywhere, played with lightness and passion, and sometimes still far from perfection, with a fleeting phrase and a mismatched sound. And so it goes until evening. And then a concert, a daily meeting with the masters, each time a different team takes the stage, and with it, different music. What a rest after a busy day. So much joyful energy that you want to absorb with your whole being. Let the moment last! And the photos? Maybe tomorrow? Now I immerse myself in sounds that purify me from the mundane. I float away like on a flying carpet into the fairy-tale world of Leśmian. It was worth coming.
Will the photos tell the story of what happened here? Will they show the emotions, excitement, joy and elation? Inspired by their surroundings, people with cameras immersed themselves in the jazz scene as much as possible. The energy born in the space of music infected everyone, including the photographers. And through them, it entered the recorded images. Can this beautiful state of mind be recreated in an exhibition?
I am strangely confident that it can. Jazz is a positive virus, so why shouldn’t those infected by it succumb to its influence?
Andrzej Zygmuntowicz