Jan Józef Fischer i Zygmunt Władysław Jaworski. Przyczynek do historii fotografii amatorskiej przełomu XIX i XX w.
Jan Józef Fischer and Zygmunt Władysław Jaworski. A contribution to the history of amateur photography at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries

Summary/Abstract: The author presents in brief the photographic activity of two photoamateurs from Cracow. They were cousins and close school companions, as well as being Tatras Mountain alpinists, for which reason the main subject of their pictures, apart from those of their home city, were alpine. J.J. Fischer (1873-1942) came from a well-known family of tradesmen and he ran a stationer’s shop on the Main Market Square. Apart from this, he was a sportsman-alpinist, skier, cyclist, sailor and automobilist, as well as being active in sports societies (the Tatras and Tatras Skiers’ associations). He was an amateur photographer, making use of good quality, expensive equipment (i.e. Goertz, Kodak and Voigländer cameras). His trading company published little albums and photographic post-cards which frequently featured his own pictures (ills. 1-3). Fischer’s negatives have perished, but in the Tytus Chałubiński Tatras Museum in Zakopane and the National Museum in Wrocław numerous, mainly contact prints (6 x 9 and 9 x 12 cm) and some enlargements have been preserved. J.W. Jaworski (1872-1952) completed his studies at the farming department of the Jagiellonian University, specialising in the rearing of animals and dairy work, carrying the title of professor from 1938. Apart from the Tatras Mountains (ills. 4, 6-8), he also photographed Cracow and adapted his amateur pictures into post-cards (ill. 5), which he would send to his family and acquaintances. Jaworski’s photographs are less numerous and not so well known as those of Fischer, who may in fact be acknowledged as a photographer of some significance. With his pictures and typographical post-cards he contributed to the propagating of the Tatras, whose nature and mountain folklore were also for the Poles symbols of freedom, living as they did at that time in a country divided between three partitioning powers. Digitalized and reedited material

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