Meet The Filmmaker Exploring Physics With Haunting VFX

Images courtesty of artist

Polish artist and academic Andrzej Dragan is a solitary force in both the scientific and creative communities—possibly the only quantum physics PhD who’s also photographed David Lynch holding a chicken. Before earning his doctorate from Warsaw University and receiving grants and scholarships from the likes of the the European Science Foundation (ESF) and the Foundation for Polish Science (FPS), he was an acclaimed composer, winning several international music competitions throughout Europe. He began taking photos in 2003 while he worked on his thesis, and within three years had become a well-known photographer, including a nomination for a Cannes Lion in 2006. 

Dragan’s shooting style has been called “The Dragan Effect,” characterized by particular high dynamic range (HDR) and retouching techniques which draw out the gritty details of skin, hair, clothes, and make-up. He told The Creators Project, “I was always trying to capture and reveal things that are considered to be repulsive, but show them in a way that makes the viewers attracted.” In the process, he helped paved the way for other HDR-heavy photographers, including Trey Ratcliffe, to develop non-traditional visual styles.

In 2013 Dragan began to break into the film world with the short, Hierarchy Lost, the story of a man who discovers “The Theory of Everything,” but can only understand it through images and music. Later that year he published Physics #1: Time Dialation, the first of a short film series that uses his signature post-production style to explore quantum physics through a surreal, cinematic perspective. He has produced two more of the hauntingly immersive shorts in the Physics series so far, and he told us there’s at least one more on the way.

We spoke to Dragan about his overlapping lives as a physicist, photographer, and filmmaker, and picked his brain about how he combines these various fields with a dash of the macabre to yield his captivating style.

The Creators Project: According to your website biography, you’re something of a world traveler. How have the cities you’ve visited influenced your craft?

Andrzej Dragan: Judging on my choice of models — not much, as all of them, apart from David Lynch and Mads Mikkelsen, were Polish. For example I love Tokyo — it’s one of my favorite cities. But although I am a great fan of Japanese culture and I have great respect for the Japanese as a nation, I don’t find them interesting for the type of portraiture I am into. That is by the way mutual, I have observed that they do not appreciate my craft as much, as it happens sometimes in the West, which may be related to our diverse perception of a face.

Your work can have a decidedly dark atmosphere at times. What inspires the subject matter in your films and photoshoots?

I always thought that inspiration was a terrible thing one should try to avoid. What can you do if you get inspired by A and B, apart from just mixing them up—perhaps with some extra spice? Not much. I somehow managed to avoid getting inspired with my still-photography, mainly by not studying or even watching other people’s work. For some reason it is not working with film. I discovered that I have to look for inspiration, which turns out to be an unwanted necessity. A possible reason for that might be that filming usually involves a larger group of creators, while photo-shooting can be handled by just one guy. So it is just more difficult to do things just on your own with this medium and I guess I need to abandon the idea of a “lonely creator” with film.

Your style has been dubbed “The Dragan Effect” by the photography community. How would you describe your style to those who don’t know what it is?

I have taken less than 100 photographs in my life, and half of them were shown publicly. So I guess it is just easy to look at a few of them to get the idea. I was always trying to capture and reveal things that are considered to be repulsive, but show them in a way that makes the viewers attracted. In your Physics series, you channel some very otherworldly imagery into essentially a campaign for wider understanding of physical science. How has your career as a physicist influenced with your career as a photographer/filmmaker, and vice versa? Not much, I guess. Recently, I am using physics as an excuse to present some weird visions I am haunted with. But that is just a bad excuse or an attempt to start self-inspiring, which turns out to be the most difficult part for me. I simply decided to talk about things I know about, using the language that has never been used for that. So it is not really an efficient way for making people understand new things. Rather, it’s creating surreal, loose variations on the extremely interesting topics concerning contemporary physics.

Though your films conceptually tie into physics—they are often very intense or even scary. Are you trying to assert that the scientific phenomena you’re exploring are themselves scary and difficult to approach? Most of the elements of the truth that we, as scientists, discovered, are not hard to understand — but they are hard to believe. In the early days, many brilliant minds rejected Einsteinian theory of relativity, as they did not believe it. Later on, many great minds, including Einstein – rejected quantum theory, because they didn’t believe it. Since both relativity and quantum theory turned out to be empirically confirmed, all these guys well plain wrong. A lesson to be learned is that we are all usually mistaken in our beliefs, so it is better to abandon any beliefs and stick to the bare facts. But, as I said, the language of Physics series is the language of metaphors, which is not intended to universally resonate with everyone. How does the Physics series compare to your other work in terms of mood, focus, style, etc? Most of my portraits present reality digested through my perception to an extent that they become more of self-portraits than the portraits of the actual models. But having a strong visual style is a terrible thing, it is just another limitation that you, as the creator have to be obedient to. And stepping outside such a box is difficult, since the style is some sort of reflection of your personality. This is one of the reasons I decided to use a new medium. This is my chance to go elsewhere.

What were the most difficult challenges in bringing these ideas from concepts to fully realized visions?

The most difficult part is to create a clear vision and find a model. Making the vision real is not difficult, it involves certain crafts and skills that can be learned (and I am in the process of learning). If I can learn and even create contemporary physics — learning how to operate with visual tools to create and control the image seems relatively easy. You said in an interview with Bak Magazine that choosing a model is the most important part of photography. How did you choose your subjects for the Physics series? I am constantly searching, looking around. Sometimes the answer is close (the character for Physics #1 was created based on the acting of my girlfriend), sometimes it is far away (the character for Physics #2 was played by a great Polish actor).

How do you hope people will react to Physics, both emotionally and intellectually? I try to surprise and absorb attention, which is increasingly difficult with consecutive projects. This is the only goal, I don’t care if the viewer is excited or disgusted, I want him to be attracted. Physics #2 is inspired by a scene from David Lynch’s Lost Highway. Tell me about the choice to use such a film to promote science.

It is more than that — it is an actual scene from the movie, adapted to my format and style, as well as my zero budget capabilities. I was just happy to be given a chance to shoot one of my favorite movie scenes of all-time my way. I did that after realizing that this familiar scene could be a wonderful parallel of the bizarre behavior of quantum particles. They [quantum particles] have a custom of (to oversimplify things) being in several places at the same time, just like the character from Lost Highway. I thought it would be funny to turn things around and show that Lynch’s surreal vision is actually not so far from reality. What was it like photographing David Lynch? It was over a hotel lunch and I preferred to have a conversation, so I took the shots as quick as possible to be able to chat with the person I admire longer. And with such a great model, not much more than the usual 1/125th of a second was enough.

Does the Physics series indicate that you’ll continue integrating science and art? And finally, what other projects are you working on? Physics is an open-ended series that I want to come back to every now and then. At the moment I am focusing on some exciting and challenging music video projects I am preparing to shoot next. There are some of my visions that are waiting to be shown and the right moment for that might just have come. I am also looking forward to start new collaborations with screenplay writers and people from the film-world while keeping the still-photography medium for special occasions.

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