magdalena wosinska
In this day and age, careers can be made on Instagram. A certain look, feel, or hashtag might be all you need to get picked up by some advertising director or launch your “digital platform.” In an increasingly competitive marketplace, technique-driven, old school photographers often try to draw a clear line in the sand between themselves and pro “Instagrammers.” 32-year-old Polish native, Magdalena Wosinska, fearlessly straddles this line and thrives on both sides of the divide.
Her Instagram handle and hashtag, #TheExperienceVol1, act as a curated travel gallery — full of beautifully honest, visually poetic self-portraits — while her commercial and editorial work are a little more polished and clean cut. Living in a time when “everyone is a photographer,” means that even established pros have to adapt to social media, but Wosinska has proven up to the task.
In this week’s #TheMadOnes, the art star lays her feelings on the table. She talks freely about how it feels being mistaken for an “Instagram sensation,” what it means to be a creative person in 2016, and how skateboarding got a camera in her hand.
magdalena wosinska
How did you develop your particular style?
Is it a generational thing to share our adventures, or are we just utilizing available technology?
magdalena wosinska
What are your feelings toward he accessibility of photography now?
That, for sure, is a generational thing.
It’s insane how fast work is getting pumped out there —
I take my job seriously and I get paid for it, and I take pictures because it’s fun, but when it crosses over and it’s my profession that’s getting belittled, that’s kind of fucked up.
magdalena wosinska
There seems to be a clear divide between what you have on Instagram and what’s on your site. Is that intentional? Dividing up the aesthetic?
[Instagram] is a very curated gallery for me. You have to make an effort to make things look good and look polished. If you have a certain following and a fanbase, they only want to see what’s there. I can’t post a picture of me and my friends hanging out because no one’s going to like that. Not that I can’t, but I don’t want to. That’s what a personal account is for. But at the same time, I don’t want to post commercial work because, it’s a different thing…
I like having a series, it’s the most consistent series I’ve ever done.
magdalena wosinska
I’m sure if you’re bidding on a job and trying to appeal to a certain client, you direct them in different ways, right?
It’s social currency. If you see some Instagram celebrity at a party, it’s hard not to be like, “Oh shit, that dude has 500,000 followers.”
magdalena wosinska
Does it feel like a façade?
But there is amazing work out there. Some people you can tell it’s authentic and it’s been their way of life for a long time, and they never needed to prove that they were there, but now they started posting it and they have like a million followers. Seeing accounts like those make we want to go out there and do what I do. The people who would be doing what they’re posting anyway.
magdalena wosinska
You have guys out there living in a van who would be doing it regardless. It’s a crazy collection of people, but they’d be doing it anyway.
It’s cool to be a part of these groups, it’s a crazy community. If you’re riding your motorcycle cross country and you breakdown in the middle of nowhere –– post that shit on Instagram and someone will probably come to your aid with a part that you need.
You might get some creeps, though, I got my first dick pic the other day.
(Laughing) First ever? I’m surprised it took that long.
magdalena wosinska
At least that inspires people to travel. This vagabond mentality is huge these days. Did you just tap into that, or was it always you’re aesthetic?
I wanna touch, taste, smell, eat, understand the culture. meet the people. Go to a weird land. See a new landscape. See what it’s like in different season. There are so many places I’ve been, but I just want to go back to see new parts of them or see new seasons there. I’ve had this desire since I was little, to explore. Often times you’re scared of what you don’t know, and so I feel like it started with wanting to know what I’m not comfortable with… but also when I was like 12 years old, I started skateboarding and that culture revolves around travel to different spots.
Once you skate the spots in your neighborhood, you go to the next town over and then the next town over from there. When I was like 13 or 14, I was saving up for gas money to go on skate trips with friends of mine that had drivers licenses. I eventually just started shooting photos of my friends.
magdalena wosinska
So skating is what gave you the travel bug?
It seems now that everyone is into this wanderlust-adventure thing, but I don’t think it’s just now. I think people that travel…travel. Theres still so many people that are like, “Oh, I can’t” or, “I don’t know what to do,” but those people are not fucking resourceful. It doesn’t take a lot of money to travel. If you’re resourceful, you can make it work.
magdalena wosinska
People are always like, “You’ve gotta be rich to travel.” Maybe, yes. If you want to go sailing on the Amalfi Coast. Yeah, you’ve gotta be rich for that. But if you’re not, you can look for deals online and stay in a hostel or camp. If you get to a certain country, bring a cooler, go to a grocery store, and get your own shit. You don’t have to eat out.
I did all of Iceland on a couple hundred dollars for two weeks. I just camped and ate a jar of peanut butter and paid for gas and a rental car. It was totally do-able. My flight was $160 round trip. You’ve gotta be good at it. Figure it out.
magdalena wosinska
You’ve gotta be savvy for sure. But there’s no reason not to, I’m very big on that.
Does Instagram help you travel?
I’ve been taking nude self portraits wayyyyyy before Instagram. Some people think I’m just this model Instagram chick, but do you know how fucking hard I try to get on a bridge and get butt naked, and tell tourists to move only to have them call the cops because they think I’m going to commit suicide? It is a composed and curated situation, every time. You’re freezing, you’re in public, it’s not easy. It’s because I care. It’s for the book. It’s much bigger than Instagram.
magdalena wosinska
What’s been the response to that work? Instagram puts everything out there. Commenters can be brutal. How has that affected your work flow?
Do the guidelines of Instagram — rules and regulations surrounding nudity — affect how you shoot?
magdalena wosinska
You’ve shot a Springsteen cover, you’ve shot Dave Grohl, David Lynch, Sasha Grey, John Baldessari… it’s an unreal list. Does it feel like you’ve made it?
Is “The Experience Vol. 1” an outlet for creativity to balance advertising work?
You told me before that you’ve been doing that body of work for a long time and that you’d be doing it no matter what. Does it ever feel like work?
How does travel play into what you do?
https://www.instagram.com/p/prKGXJJSos
magdalena wosinska
magdalena wosinska
magdalena wosinska
magdalena wosinska
magdalena wosinska
magdalena wosinska
magdalena wosinska
The Mad Ones is a reference to a famous quote from Jack Kerouac’s On the Road: “…the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes ‘Awww!’”
Watch this series for interviews and profiles with people doing big, wild, bold, creative things with their lives. #TheMadOnes
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