Chwytanie życia. „Bezkrwawe łowy” jako forma wytwarzania relacji poprzez fotografię

Throughout its long history, animal photography has taken many forms: from studio photographs of various species to landscape compositions with stuffed exhibits and camera hunting to wildlife photography in the aesthetics decided and promoted by „National Geographic”. One of its most distinctive formulas in Polish culture was developed by Włodzimierz Puchalski. His ‘bloodless hunt’ has inspired generations of professionals and enthusiasts in Poland. The aim of this article is to present this approach to photography and partially reconstruct the world of a man who created it. Particular focus is put on Puchalski’s photography-mediated bilateral relations with non-human animals, especially birds, inhabiting the wetlands and forests. ‘Bloodless hunt’ is analysed both as an important point of reference in the study of Polish photographic communities and the key to the understanding and denaturalisation of a model in which the cognitive and social relations in the more-than-human world are based on the naturalised logic of the reversed panopticon and the dissociation of the see/being seen dyad.