Polish photographer Maciej Markowicz has revolutionized the ancient art of camera obscura by creating moving sanctuaries that capture what he calls "Motiongraphs" - unique traces of time dancing with light. His unconventional approach transforms the historical photographic method into a contemporary meditation on mortality, presence, and the fluid nature of time.
Markowicz's journey with camera obscura began from a profound confrontation with mortality. As a child in 1980s Poland, his Polish grandmother called him "pędziwiatr" - a roadrunner, always running, always in motion, carried by the wind. However, a sudden illness nearly cost him his life, and this early experience completely transformed his perception of time. "I'm here now, but I might not be here tomorrow," he explains. "This awareness doesn't limit me; it awakens me. Every moment becomes precious. Every second of light becomes sacred."
The artist discovered his breakthrough technique during a pivotal moment in 2012 while traveling through a New York subway tunnel. When the train lights went out for a few seconds and tunnel lights flickered through the windows, he had a revelation: "Movement is time made visible." This insight led him to put the camera obscura in motion, creating what would become his signature floating camera obscura installations.
"For me, the Camera Obscura isn't just a device - it's a sanctuary," Markowicz explains. "A place where I can stop being the roadrunner and become fully present to light itself. In this darkened space, the world projects itself, inverted and pure." He draws parallels to how newborns see the world upside down and mirrored during their first ten weeks of life, before their brains learn to flip the image. "This raw, unfiltered look at the present moment is precisely what I'm seeking."
Markowicz calls his works "Motiongraphs," which capture what he describes as the true fluid nature of time. Each piece requires exactly eight seconds of exposure - a duration he considers his personal portal to the present moment. "A Motiongraph isn't a photograph of something. It's a trace of time itself dancing with light," he says. "Think about it: every photon present in these images has traveled eight minutes from the Sun to reach Earth, covering 93 million miles while carrying the fundamental energy that drives all life."
The uniqueness of each work reflects Markowicz's philosophy about the singular nature of lived experience. He creates only negative originals rather than reproductions, believing that "this moment here and now will never happen again. Every breath you take cannot be repeated. Each Motiongraph honors this truth." This isn't about market scarcity, he emphasizes, but about honoring the singular nature of lived experience.
Water plays a central role in Markowicz's practice, serving as what he calls "a perfect metaphor for time." Working from his floating camera obscura, he practices a form of meditation as the boat gently rocks, light dances on the water's surface, and the city glides by at 8 km/h. "Inside the darkened space, I am both in motion and still: the paradox of the roadrunner who has stopped running," he reflects.
The artist draws inspiration from philosopher Henri Bergson's distinction between "clock time" and "lived duration." While clock time is what we measure, lived duration is what we experience when fully present. "The floating Camera Obscura gives me access to duration - time as we actually live it, not as we anxiously account for it," Markowicz explains. "On board the Camera Obscura, I practice true time-slowing therapy."
Markowicz's Camera Obscura Van project in New York, launched in 2015, represented his search for the American dream while discovering what is truly real. Having grown up dreaming of America as a mythical place of freedom and possibility, he spent years traversing the bustling metropolis at a speed slow enough to truly see life rather than simply pass through it. "The van became my first floating temple - my first remedy against acceleration culture," he recalls.
His artistic titles remain deliberately poetic and minimal, such as "View from the Bridges," because he wants people to experience the work rather than read it. "Text can become a distraction," he explains. "I prefer the work to speak through light and time, and I want viewers to immerse themselves in each piece for at least eight seconds." His subject is time itself - the temporal qualities of existence and the relentless flow of the present moment.
Looking ahead, Markowicz continues exploring how the Camera Obscura can become even more of a temple, a sacred space for experiencing light. He's considering working with weather balloons or underwater installations, but these are simply new forms for the same essential question: "How do we stay present to the fleeting, precious, and unrepeatable nature of life?"
His upcoming exhibition, "Above the River and Under the Sky," will open at INNSITU Gallery in Innsbruck in mid-April 2026. The new body of work, created in Vorarlberg and Tyrol, Austria, explores the suspended position between verticals and horizons. "Above the river, under the sky - that's where we all live," he explains. "We exist in this incredibly thin layer between water and sky, between earth and cosmos, and most people never stop to feel this truth."
The exhibition will feature large-format works that Markowicz calls "temporal lemniscates" - visual embodiments of the infinity symbol, where limitation and limitlessness collaborate. "When the figure 8 lies down, it becomes the sign of infinity," he notes. "My eight-second exposures capture a complete journey around this eternal symbol."
Markowicz's preparation ritual involves entering the pitch-black Camera Obscura and hanging photographic paper in total darkness - "a kind of dance, guided by memory and touch rather than sight." During the eight-second exposure, he becomes motionless, breathes, feels the movement, hears the wind, and becomes part of the moving Camera Obscura. He doesn't manipulate or "correct" the results in Photoshop, believing that "what happened, happened. Time flowed, light danced, and I was present to witness it."
When asked about musical parallels to his work, Markowicz cites Chopin's Nocturnes and Keith Jarrett's improvisations. Chopin captures the inner stillness and contemplative darkness of being inside the Camera Obscura, while Jarrett represents pure movement and perpetual life in motion. "Together, they are perfect: Chopin is the stillness inside the shadow-plunged Camera Obscura. Jarrett is the movement of the boat on water."
For emerging experimental photographers, Markowicz offers four essential pieces of advice: find what you cannot not do, build your temple rather than your career, make your limitations your liberation, and remember that you might not be here tomorrow. "Stop being interested in photography," he advises. "Start being interested in what you want to reveal. Once you've deeply explored your commitment to your subject, the tools become secondary."
His final wisdom reflects his transformation from roadrunner to contemplative artist: "The roadrunner discovered that to catch up with time, you must first stop running. The Camera Obscura taught me that eight seconds of total attention don't give me less - they give me everything. They offer me an infinite window inside every ordinary moment."
