Smolak Wojciech
He was born in 1944 in Krakow.
Member of ZPAF since 29 June 1973
In 1968, he graduated in Foundry Engineering from the AGH University of Science and Technology. From 1965, he collaborated with the “Pod Gruszką” Journalists Club, where he documented cultural and artistic events. He began publishing his first photos in the 1960s in the youth magazines ITD, Radar, Student, the Dziennik Polski and Gazeta Krakowska dailies and as a permanent member of the Kraków quarterly editorial team. In 1970-1974, he worked as a photographer at the National Museum in Krakow, and his museum photographs were used by publishing houses in Poland (Ossolineum, Arkady), Germany, and Hungary.
In 1970-1985, he specialised in industrial photography, creating projects at Polish and foreign industrial plants and salt mines. In the late twentieth century, he took interest in the Tatra region. He founded the Oficyna Artystów “Sztuka” publishing house, using its proceeds to publish his own albums popularising the villages of Podhale, their folklore, architecture, landscapes and local artists, from Spisz to Orawa. He cooperated with municipalities, the Tatra Museum, and the Orawa Ethnographic Park Museum, co-creating a number of leaflets and albums in the years 1996-2017, as well as the earliest journalistic websites dedicated to Podhale, Spisz and Orawa.