If you were given a choice of only one word to describe Pav, then it would have to be “contrast”.

Looking at his life, may it be personal, professional, or creative, his is a life of contrast. Living in a world of extremes, where the middle of the road is not in his psyche.

He was born in Poland during an oppressive regime. Where free and radical thinking was stifled and persecuted. You followed the rules and were encouraged against drawing attention to yourself from a young age. This is something that for a long time had become part of his conditioning.

He would like to say that this is where his uncle gave him a camera and he took one frame and fell in love with it as a 5 year old. Well as a matter of fact, his uncle did give him a camera but it was some old Soviet era thing that broke after 1 roll of film. It just wasn’t his time.

Pav and his mother escaped Poland and emigrated to Australia via a 12 month stay in a refugee camp.

He studied in Canberra; where photography, particularly the darkroom process, piqued his interest. Sometimes spending whole days in the darkroom, foregoing all of the other subjects on the day. But once school finished the reality of adulthood overshadowed this “hobby”.

Unfortunately, it just wasn’t his time.

Just a few years later he became a husband and a father. He packed up the family and moved to Port Macquarie, where he got the opportunity to work in a high end photo lab and camera store. Even though he became a father for the second time, his relationship soured and soon the marriage was over. As was another chapter in his photography saga, and again, it just wasn’t his time.

He married for the second time and fathered 2 more children. Somewhere in the middle, he again landed himself with a position in a professional photo lab, one with darkroom facilities, which by then were a rarity. As luck would have it, the digital photography boom was on its way, and in his eyes he could see the industry changing. He made a difficult decision to again change career paths in a totally different direction: choosing to study accounting.

A certain pattern was beginning to emerge, it just wasn’t his time.

Even though his second marriage lasted significantly longer than the first, it also crumbled and eventually, at age 39, he found himself starting all over again.

He enjoyed a successful corporate career as a Chartered Accountant, even allowing his creative side to shine through at times. But no matter what, there was always this itch that he could not quite reach.

But nothing could have prepared him for what was to happen next.

"When you meet that person, the one that you are meant to be with, you finally realise why it never worked before."

He met a woman; one he wasn’t prepared for. She managed to turn his life upside down none the less. It’s almost ironic then, that their first conversations were centred around that fact the he was a photographer as by then he was beginning to form his style in fashion and portrait photography.

A few years later, in the middle of COVID they married. It was his wife, Bel, that stoked the embers of a dying fire within him. Understanding that photography and all that comes with it, is more than just passion for him.

"I believe that if you consider yourself a professional photographer, you can no longer claim that you have a passion for photography. It is a given. You do not commit to a profession like this unless you breathe it… instead, you have a calling."

As all great things tend to start with a crazy idea, he decided to take a chance and open a studio, aiming to build on his calling for portrait, fashion, and fine art photography.

Finally it is his time.