Photographer capturing Poland’s socialist gems scoops iPhone photography prize

A Poznań artist has won a top photography prize for his abstract shots capturing the city’s socialist-era tower blocks.

Jedrzej Franek won third place in the abstract photography category of the 2018 iPhone Photography awards. Snapped on an iPhone 6, the picture shows the former Polonez Hotel: a once luxurious 1980s guest house which was later reopened as student dormitories.

Franek, who has previously featured in Calvert 22 Foundation’s Post-Sovet Visions exhibition, says he was first drawn to shooting architecture as a way of focusing on his immediate surroundings. He then goes on to manipulate each image digitally, creating abstract patterns from Poznań’s patchwork of tower blocks to reinforce their bizarre uniformity.

“By thinking about how life and my immediate surroundings will look in the photo I’m able to think more clearly,” he told The Calvert Journal. “By wandering and looking through the lens, I fell in love with Poznań.”

To see more of Franek’s work, visit his website here.