Maciej Dakowicz is a Polish photographer, traveller and educator. He was born in 1976 in Bialystok, Poland. After finishing computer science studies he went to Hong Kong in Oct 2000 (that was his first ever flight) to work at university as a researcher and programmer. Whilst there he bought his first camera to show his family and friends the beauty and exotism of his new Asian home. Thanks to the Internet and photo sharing websites he quickly got hooked up and photography became his main passion. He started taking pictures seriously and began travelling extensively. At the end of 2004 he moved to Wales to work as a researcher at university again and study for a PhD degree. However, the passion for photography was stronger than the passion for science, so on the 1st of Jan 2009 he left the academic life and decided to try becoming a professional photographer. Then after a year he managed to obtain the PhD degree, put the thesis away on the shelf and have been concentrating on his photography since then, never looking back. While living in Wales he produced his most known body of work – a “Cardiff After Dark” project portraying a weekend night out in the Welsh capital. Maciej left Wales in 2012, lived in London for a year and then moved to India where he spent two years living in Mumbai, then three years in Bangkok and now he is back in Poland.
Maciej’s photos have been widely published and exhibited around the world, shown at various photo festivals (including Visa Pour l’Image) and he is a recipient of numerous awards. His photos were included in several major street photography books – “Street Photography Now”, “The World Atlas of Street Photography”, “100 Great Street Photographs”, “Bystander: A History of Street Photography” and “Street Photography: A History in 100 Iconic Photographs”. Maciej’s first monograph “Cardiff After Dark was” published in October 2012 and the second “Sonepur Mela” in July 2021.
Maciej is also one of the founders of Third Floor Gallery in Cardiff (not existing anymore) and a member of Un-Posed – a Polish collective of street photographers. He is a passionate collector of photography books and feels at home in Asia. He spends half of his time traveling and teaching his popular street photography workshops, mostly in Asia and Eastern Europe. Apart from photography his passions are music (indie, punk, alternative and ska) and cars (youngtimers from the 80s and 90s).
