Inspiration Feeder: Jakub Rybicki

Our “Inspiration Feeder” presents to you short interviews with interesting visual artists from around the globe. Today in focus: Jakub Rybicki.

How old are you?

I was born in 1985.

Where do you come from?

I live in Poznan, Poland, but my work demands constant travelling. I often stay in Berlin.

How long have you been doing photography?

I got my first DSLR camera in 2005 or 2006 and since then I started doing a lot of photos. My first commercial shoot was a wedding in 2010. the I started working in journalism and developing travel photography.

How long do you think it took you to find your personal style of shooting?

I don’t really know if I have one particular style, it’s changing over the years. In travel photography I try to connect people’s stories with great landscape. I don’t believe you can tell a story without a good portrait. So I try to get to know many people during my travels. When we establish a relation, it’s time to portrait them, but it’s not always that easy. I believe portraying people is an important act, so I never shoot undercover, I always ask if the person wants to be photographed. Sometimes they don’t and `i respect that. The other thing is street photo – here being hidden (or rather “unnoticeable”) is a must. Connecting these three elements (portraits, street and landscape) gives you a good story. I often travel by bike, so it adds the “adventurous” element. You picked photos from my winter cycling travels – in such places it’s sometimes hard to find people, then it’s only adventure and outdoor photography. But there’s a place for good portrait (even self- portrait) too.

How long do you think it took you to find your personal style of shooting?

I think it’s a constant process and the style is developing each year. I believe there’s some critical mass of pictures you take and see, when you start to see patterns in your photography. When you realize that, you start to reflect: why is that? Why do I shoot this? Why didn’t I shoot that? This may happen may after several thousands, or dozen of thousands pictures. I can’t answer your question precisely, but I would say I started to see patterns in my photography after some 20-30 thousands of pictures SAVED (that means selected and developed in Lightroom, not counting those I rejected, and there’s far more of them). Travel (including outdoor & adventure) is probably the widest genre of photography. It’s much easier when it comes to specific genres, e.g. wedding photography. After 4-5 weddings I already knew what I like and don’t like about shooting them. I defined my style as wedding reportage, where I am as invisible as possible. I explained my clients that they will get photos like these and if they don’t like my previous works they wouldn’t enjoy me working for them. This “natural selection” lead to some great jobs. Clients are always satisfied and so am I, we often become friends. So my advice is: follow your heart, find your style and develop it. You’re an artist and you deserve to follow your path, although not everybody will like it.

What would you say is the thing that most inspires you? / What is your main source of inspiration?

I have countless sources of inspiration. Too much, I’d say. Firstly, it was National Geographic magazine – when I was a kid I was watching only pictures, because I couldn’t read English 🙂 Later, with my education I got acquainted with legends of photography, from who we can still learn today (reminding Capa’s saying always help me when I wonder what should I do to make my photo better). Today we have instagram and it’s fantastic source of inspiration for photographer. Of course there’s a lot (i’d say 90%) of bad photography there, but the algorithm is quite smart and when you follow professional photographers, agencies or sites like yours, you get an incredible doze of inspiration day by day. The risk is you get distracted because of all these stunning pictures 🙂