Portrait nominee

Can suffering conceal a path to a better life?

Reborn is a photographic story that raises questions about the meaning of pain and searches for the hope hidden beneath it. 
It portrays a metaphor-filled journey of inner transformation – from the experience of collapse to the strength that emerges from the darkest of moments.


A Photographic Story in Three Acts
Act I: The Experience of Crisis
When the familiar order falls apart and emptiness overshadows everything around. All that remains is the sense of lost meaning.
Act II: The Process of Rising and Learning
The first steps out of crisis are faltering. Between rising and falling again, a new life slowly begins to take shape.
Act III: Rebirth
The longed-for moment of relief. After the collapse of the known order, a new strength is born. A reconciliation with the past and readiness for the future. The triumph of life.

A Unique Technique
All works were created using Beata Bieńkowska’s own original, unique photographic technique.
Through optical manipulation, the images are given a painterly, almost tactile quality – without any graphic post-processing. The result is a series of pictures balancing on the edge of realism, concealing unnecessary details of daily life

A physicist by education and a self-taught photographer by passion. She has been combining classical photography with personal artistic exploration for nearly twenty years. She works in family, portrait, and reportage photography, while developing her own painterly visual language. Using a unique technique of optical distortion without post-production, she creates images that reveal emotions and moods, going beyond the boundaries of traditional photography. This approach is central to the series Look Outside, get Inside, which sets aside everyday details to focus on the emotions and relationships of the subjects.