Maciek Pozoga is 26 lives in paris, and lately can’t decide whether he should watch funny or intense cheerless movies when he’s feeling blue on sundays.
MOSSLESS: What’s your favorite place Vice Magazine sent you?
MACIEK POZOGA: My first real reportage was spending a couple of weeks in the poorest city of France (Berhen-Lès-Forbachs) for the ‘poverty issue’. Not sure if it was my “favorite place”, but it was very interesting and a great opportunity to practice documentary photography. Like you’re concretely confronted to the problems linked to reportage. Asking yourself what you want to tell, in which ways, what should be shown, what shouldn’t, cause obviously there is no such thing as recording reality in an objective way. Some people were pretty harsh to us (like some kids threw stones at us, one even spit at me), but most of em were very friendly and curious of what we were doing here. They would always tell us “Why on earth would you talk about our city, it’s shitty and boring”, or stuff like that. In the end I think my pictures were pretty much reflecting the ‘truth’ of what was going on there, as we stayed almost 2 weeks.
ML: When did you first start contributing to the magazine?
MP: My first contribution to the magazine were two Music-portraits (Article, Itw, Picture) about friends of mine from Bordeaux, we had to pretend we didn’t know each others for the interview and one of em is doing electronic music, so I had to write something about his music even though I don’t know shit about techno music. Eventually the editor thought my pictures were more interesting than the articles, so that’s when I really started taking more pictures.
ML: You’ve made some awesome gig posters and album covers (link). What came first, illustration or photography?
MP: Illustration came first, I’ve been drawing since I was a kid, I used to draw turtles with their head inside their shell, and sometime some of em would have their head outside. But I never considered illustration as a job, cause it’s almost impossible for me to work on demand, I’m only able to draw for friends or bands I really dig. I feel photography is not the same, it can be less personal, it’s like you can shoot from inside the shell if you’re using a zoom ^^
ML: If you weren’t shooting photos or drawing, what would you be doing?
MP: I guess pretty much the same, except that we wouldn’t record it. Hanging around, talking shit, drinking, hiking, flirting… I never felt the need to record anyhting, I always thought things were more beautiful as ephemeral, as memories and that taking picture or filming were ruining it. Suddenly the fantasy we could have about moments we had would become cold and concrete, like dead-alive instead of just dead. But eventually I found out we could also do it the other way, and fantasise the world taking pictures, instead of just embellishing stories afterward drinking a pint, which is more exciting.
