The Author
I am a biologist by professional formation and my first profession. Later my work moved me further away from the research, however, has offered the conditions to stay, for long periods of time, in different countries on different continents, which gave me the opportunity to get to know them thoroughly. Nature continues to be my passion that becomes even deeper, with opportunities to become familiar with wider range of natural habitats and wider scale of biodiversity. The variety of living beings and their beauty are what is for me the most attractive in nature.
Progress in the world, including in natural sciences, requires more and more advanced specialization. When, as a zoologist, I was researching microscopical-size organisms, Gastrotricha, my area of specialization was very narrow. At present, I look at nature differently: in my photographs I try to capture all the richness of its forms.
The Internet offers us unprecedented, and rapidly expanding, access to photography of nature. The available great collections are either just narrowly specialized, or waive the thematic criteria. In both cases, however, a huge amount of collected documentation makes it harder to organise and reach out to specific taxa. In my collection, I try to go in the opposite direction: to limit the number of photographs of each species to the most representative, and to shape the site structure so that a visitor could in the easiest way get an idea of the content and reach the desired taxon. As a rule, I have been taking photographs of organisms in free nature only and without prejudice to them (unfortunately, it was not the case of Gastrotricha which were studied under a microscope).
I invite professional biologists, students and all other persons sensitive to the beauty of nature and its diversity to visit my collection. I invite you to visit the main collection, the photographs of particular animal, plant and fungal taxa, as well as the review of the habitats that I was able to visit, arranged by biomes and conservation units – parks and reserves. I also suggest visiting thematic collections, where selected photographs are presented in various ways, sometimes in humorous manner. The section "Dwellers of various environments" abandons systematical criteria, presenting typical species in ecological order. I have decided to supplement my collection with most valuable microscopic photographs of Gastrotricha from the period of my research. Comparison of their quality with that of contemporary microscopic photography is a good measure of progress that has been made in optical techniques during last decades.
Even the experts are sometimes wrong in identifying taxa, let alone a person whose collection covers such a broad spectrum of groups of the living world. I thank those professionals who were willing to help me in identifying taxa and I wish to thank in advance those who will correct my mistakes. In any such case, the name of the specialist who provided such an assistance is given after the code "Det.", below the photograph, on the right.
I am not satisfied with the quality of many presented photographs; however, photographing nature has special requirements, not only the animal photography. The choice of photographs has been a compromise between the requirements of quality, scientific value and the collection’s completeness, within higher taxa and species. Where technical conditions allowed, I have included old analog photographs. Pity that to restore their full beauty was not possible. Such images are marked with the word "Analog.", below them. I will try to replace worse photographs with better ones.
A faithful companion of majority of my trips has been my wife Grażyna. I wish to thank her for patience and dedication as well as for sharing with me the joy of experiencing nature’s beauty. Some of her photographs are included in the collection. In such cases, they are marked with the initials "GJK", below the photograph, on the left. Many other people made our trips possible or accompanied us. We are grateful to all of them. My special thanks go to Sylwester Przybyło, co-author of the site, who has created its visual form and functionalities.
I hope you will enjoy the collection. I am looking forward to your comments and wish to thank you for them in advance.