Romuald Broniarek (1931-2013) – photographer and photojournalist, who in 1955 began working for the weekly “Przyjaźń” – an instrument of Communist propaganda. Initially reporting on exhibitions of technological achievements of the USSR, Russian poetry evenings, rallies and music festivals, over time Broniarek started visiting workplaces, construction sites, garrisons, taking trips on the so-called friendship train and traveling around the Soviet Union. Depending on the political situation, the editorial office also commissioned topics that we would call “lifestyle” today – leisure activities, daily life, and even fashion photography and advertising. In Romuald Broniarek’s photographic achievements, accounts of visits of Soviet notables to Poland, official celebrations and clearly propaganda ones are mixed with snapshots which today constitute a document of the reality of the Polish People’s Republic.

The world seen through Broniarek’s eyes is sometimes postcard-like, the photographs are exaggeratedly aesthetic, meticulously staged, but do not lose the value of a documentary record, and the author’s photographic talent, great compositional care (with a particular passion for strong, diagonal lines orienting the scene) and personal aesthetic sensitivity give these frames a value that goes far beyond the documentary.

“In Passing” is for the most part a collection of the images that “Przyjaźń” did not run. The album, published by Warsaw’s History Meeting House, was created in cooperation with 77 Press.