Photographer Biography - Chris Porsz

 

With regular spots in the Peterborough Evening Telegraph and local exhibitions, Chris Porsz has become a bit of a celebrity in these parts and rightly so. I feel privileged to be able display the majority of Chris' collection of old photographs on this website. When asked if he could provide a bit of information about himself for a photographer profile, Chris sent us a very detailed mini auto-biography and several great photographs which has made my job very easy! The text below is all in Chris' own words.

 

In the early hours of January 31st 1953 safe within the walls of Peterborough’s maternity unit, the Gables, I was born. Outside the worst floods of the 20th century visited our shores where ships went down and over 300 people drowned.

A mere 8 years before my mother Krystyna hovered on the brink of survival and extinction in a Nazi concentration camp.

They called the sisters the three beauties, Krystyna, Eda and Regina. They led happy lives in Warsaw but the family would be torn asunder. My mother's father died in the sewers, her mother Sarah, Regina and her five year old daughter Lillian were murdered in  Majdanek concentration camp Lublin. Eda was sent to Siberia by the Russians and it is where my cousin Vicki was born.

Krystyna and Lillian - 1939

My mother's fiancée was a member of the resistance and helped her escape the Warsaw Ghetto but ended up in the infamous Pawiak prison and later Ravensbruck a womens slave labour and extermination camp near Berlin. Surviving the harsh winter of 44/45 she was liberated by the Americans.

My father Alfons Porsz escaped from Poland to England to join the 1st Independent Polish Parachute Brigade. Later he fought bravely at Arnhem and married my mother in Germany.

 

Alphons Porsz training for Arnhem

Krystyna and Alphons Porsz - Germany, 1947

Alphons & Krystyna Porsz - Cathedral Square, Peterborough late 1940s/early 1950s

Penniless and homeless they came to Peterborough in 1947 but worked hard to put the horrors of war behind them and build a new life. They first lived in Gladstone Street where the landlady stole their rations.

 

Krystyna and Alphons Porsz - Peterborough, 1947

 

My father worked in the brickyards and then Perkins. He was one of their most skilled toolmakers and a table tennis champion. Sadly he developed pre-senile dementia at the age of 48. My mother worked for many years at the Embassy and now at 89 her memory is fading fast. My brother Richard was born at Thorpe Hall in 1949. We both attended Fulbridge and Lincoln Road schools and spent our formative years at 61 Burmer Road.

 

Burmer Road, Peterborough, 1952

Burmer Road, Peterborough approximately 1955

From left to right: Alphons, Richard, Alphon's mother, Chris and Krystyna - Burmer Road, Peterborough approximately 1958

 

A uni dropout In 1974 I took a temporary job as a hospital porter and thirteen years later was still there. It was pre-seatbelt days and utter carnage but good preparation for my later career.  In 1988 I joined the ambulance service and after 20 years as a paramedic still find it immensely satisfying and rewarding..

 

Chris Porsz, the mod in Cathedral Square, Peterborough approximately 1971

 

My wife Lesley and I hitched hiked to Africa and all I had was a Kodak Instamatic. My hobby really took off with the birth of our first child Simon in 1978 followed by Adam and Emma.
I progressed from Pratika to Canon and turned over my front room in Alma Road to a darkroom and burned the midnight oil. I cannot draw or paint so like to express myself through a lens. I guess my photos say something about me and how I see and perhaps would like to see society. It is why my photo of ‘Good Neighbours’ in Gladstone Street speaks volumes.

In the eighties I trudged the streets for hours, days capturing unique snapshots of Peterborough and its characters. Then I rushed home excitedly to develop and print but was often disappointed by blurred, mediocre, out of focus, under and over exposed ruined images. Occasionally though a little gem has stood the passage of time and made it all worth it.

So take plenty of anything and everything as digital is cheap. Take several different exposures to avoid disappointment. Auto focus is a great boom especially with my poor eyesight. It suits my candid photography well and I have great respect for the masters who had no such luxury.

With modern cameras most people can take a half decent photo. A good camera helps but the trick is spotting something different and unusual just at the right moment. Many photos are ruined with that white van or polythene shopping bag fluttering in the background.

My favourite style is candid, that is natural and unposed where possible. Mainly people, old characters with weathered faces, walking sticks up against the elements and adversity. Forgotten special moments captured for posterity.

I would mainly roam the city centre, Gladstone St, Eastgate, where there was lots of activity. Much like Millfield of today with its great cosmopolitan mix, rich with characters that make great photos. I feel a great affinity with the new Poles as they remind me of my parents struggle. I just wished they had taught me Polish as a child.

A lot of my subjects of social deprivation suits monochrome much better as colour can distract the eye from the person behind a face.

Humour is very important to me too and I would wait ages by a big billboard for the appropriate person to go by. Try it, that juxtaposition shot. It is true to say I make photos rather than just take them.

Sometimes I would ask if I could take someones picture and most people did not mind. Even better when walking through town groups of youths would invite me to photograph them.

My regrets are not taking more of old Peterborough before it was swallowed up by Queensgate and other developments. So get out there and take more before it is a distant memory. Buildings at the time were incidental to me and it was the characters I was searching for. If I took a picture of a building I usually had a person walking by to give it life and scale. You will rarely see a photo of mine devoid of people.

 

Chris Porsz, Gladstone Street, Peterborough approximately 1983

I have changed my style now and mainly use a wide angle lens to get everything in so as to place people in their context. Some of my favourite images are when people react spontaneously to me and my camera. It is often the eye contact, or some gesture that separates the mundane from a special photo. Something you do not get with the artificial compression of a telephoto lens. A wide angle draws you in and makes you feel part of the photo.

My heroes include Henri Cartier- Bresson the father of candid photography. His Decisive Moment, the fraction of a second when you press that button. "Oop! The Moment, once you miss, it is gone forever." My favourite is my road sweeper losing his beret on a windy day in Bridge Street. Robert Capa of course and his very relevant advice "if your pictures aren’t good enough you aren't close enough". So don't be shy ditch the telephoto sometimes and get in close and interact with your subject. And boy did Capa get in close at D Day only to have most of them destroyed by a dark room technician who ruined them.

Finally the brave photo journalist Don McCullim from Finsbury Park to Vietnam, to his seeking peace in Sommerset landscapes. His powerful photographs enhanced by that grainy, gritty rich monochrome. They can all inspire us to take better photos.

Relaxing from work I still love wandering the streets, chatting to complete strangers, listening to their potted life stories and recording everyday life in the changing face of our city.
Whatever you do back up your photos. I have learn't the hard way and lost fond memories. I am treading the streets again to capture for example Westgate and Cowgate before the new developments. I hope my photos will continue to fascinate and provoke mixed emotions to unique moments of time, captured in fleeting expressions on a face.

Chris Porsz July, 2010.

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Chris Porsz, the Paramedic 2008

Chris Porsz, the Photographer 2009