9 Gates of No Return

• Prize
  Gold in Book/People
• Photographer
  Agata Grzybowska
• Agency / Studio
  Blow Up Press
• Technical Info
  Cameras Used: Sinar 4x5, Hexar 35mm And Polaroid Sx70
• Photo Date
  Book premiere: November 16, 2017

For decades, the Bieszczady Mountains in south-eastern Poland are a symbol of total freedom and direct, tangible contact with nature. But for 9 persons presented in the book they became a trap, which they cannot get out from. They live there far away from other people, often without electricity and running water, in the huts they built themselves. Why did they make such decisions? What was driving them? What did they run away from? What did they want to achieve in this way? What the loneliness and melancholy is for them? These are just some of the questions that the book is trying to answer.

Established in 2012, BLOW UP PRESS is a boutique style publishing house focused on contemporary photography, known from such publications as doc! photo magazine (quarterly mook dedicated to contemporary documentary photography) and DEBUTS (yearly publication presenting the most talented emerging photographers). BUP also publishes monographs by emerging as well as already established photographers. This includes two books so far: 9 Gates of No Return by Agata Grzybowska and Death landscapes by Hubert Humka. Three new books will be published till the end of 2018.