Travelling through china -" How I met Ignas a lithuanian photographer"

At the end of 2012, my act is also to use the winter holidays to lean back, relax and try to make a resume of the past years. This time, my world trip seems a dream far away. I still edit my pictures and I think a lot about my passion to be a photographer. Why taking picture is such an important part of my life?

Last year was special, because I lived a life for a few month, a dream of alot of people. Travelling, having adventures, being in the middle of things was an anthem and a great experience. It looks like I am an active man. But in my point of view, I felt often like an outsider, a passive observer of the everyday life, which is for me so impressive in its simple beauty and authenticity.

But photography allows me also to meet extraordinary people. During my time in China in March, I met the Lithuanian photographer Ignas Maldziunas. I stayed in a very nice hostel called Three Legged Frog in Beijing as Pia, a lovely chinese member of the staff who introduced me to Ignas with the words. “ Michael, you are a photographer, right... This is Ignas, he is also one. Talk together! “ It sounded like a command in the hard chinese voice.

I was on my way to a big photo store in Beijing and I invited Ignas to join me. We had a crazy drive in car with a chinese photographer and his german friend Thomas, who I had met the day before. Ignas told me that he travelled for a few month through China to take pictures of the modern chinese ghost towns. Cities, which the government still build in foresight of the strong growing population. Ignas had not spoken english since weeks when we met. And he was very happy to have a nice talk. I was impressed by Ignas, because he is an old fashioned photographer. He worked with his nice Hasselblad and on film and it was interesting to hear how he spoke about photography. More in a philosophical way. He is not the photographer who is very interested in seeing other galleries or exhibitions. He told me that he is afraid to be too much affected by the views of other people. Ignas chose photography as a form of communication, as means to speak to people, who he believed would enjoy his point of view, who would see and think alike.

Ignas told me he likes China because of its beauty combined with loneliness, big empty spaces and greatness of the unchangeable things.

Ignas believes that people are stuck on the information they are given or even forced upon. “Still”, he said, “we’re free to see what we want and free to decide what’s beautiful and important to us. And there are so many things in details – in small details we miss because of the daily rush, because of that massive load of “important” information. I want people to stop and see the small (big) things…” I like this thoughts of Ignas and during a few chess games, which I all lost (and I am not a bad player!!), I realized that there was another bother in mind. Maybe this is the important things for photographers, to show people their point of views...but there is also the danger, to lose the way of seeing things. Especially in a time of images everywhere.

Now, I am back in Germany and I still have contact with Ignas. I asked him to send some more of his thoughts about photography. I found this sentences “You need to spend some time with my photography, because you won’t see the essence from the first look, you need to live with it for a while, to have that love for life, for simple things, for human beings, for all of the God’s creatures. My pictures are also a lot about geometry. I want the eye to feel comfortable with the provided information and I would like to be the viewer’s guide to another world, another chosen dimension, to another feeling never felt before.”, when I asked him to describe his works.

I visited Paris Photo in November. Trying to make my way in the world of photography and I remembered Ignas words, when walking around the area in the Grand Palais. I saw thousands of impressive pictures, a lot of money for the art market, but I also saw only people in a rush. Exhausted from their way from one gallery to the next. I saw a lot of people taking pictures of impressive photos...maybe to remember, maybe to buy it at last. But I missed people, who took their time, to look at a picture...

Thank you Ignas, to show me your pictures and to tell me that I have to take my time. Back in Germany it seems that I lost already what I thought, I have learned during my world trip... to take my time to respect the small “big” things of life.

I wish everybody a good start in 2013! Take your time!

Photos: Michael Wagener and Ignas Maldziunas