running up that hill (2014 – 2018)

I think that Izabela feels photographs more than she takes them.

She thinks a lot but doesn’t really like to write things down. It’s a reluctance to commit anything solid but it’s also probably wise. Because sometimes it’s best to keep quiet – like these photos – because their silence says so much more.

Yet, I’ve pushed her gently, to reveal just a little, to break the silence. So a few thoughts, facts and possible insights.
The photographs, taken between 2014 and 2017, are mainly from Wapping (in East London), Scotland and Poland. A few were shot in France and same in UK seaside resorts.
But the locations seem not to matter because you can’t see the join, it’s seamless. It’s the feeling inside her that’s more revealing, wherever she is.

Izabela brings the same blanket silence to these places, almost as a dream or a longing. Black silence is better at night, you can hear the white better. Luminous white on black haunts these photographs. Yes, it’s a search for white beacons, whether washing on a line or sheep that shout out in the night. And of course there are no people in the photographs. People don’t seem necessary but you can hear them in the silence.

Finally though let’s dwell on one photograph, the Milky Way lookalike, it’s a swirl of white, like a Danish pastry in the Universe. I have no idea how she took this, or what it actually is. I could ask her but that might spoil the effect.
Izabela is right, that’s the wonder of the silence, you just need to listen and imagine.

David Gibson