By Kacper Pempel

When I started working on a story about food waste, I was shocked by the estimates provided by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization that 1.3 billion tonnes of food – equivalent to the amount produced by the whole of sub-Saharan Africa – is wasted every year.

That is why I started thinking of ways to prevent such waste and it’s what led me to a food bank organization and to a volunteer who works for them in Bronisze agricultural market, not far from Warsaw.

Wanda is a 71-year-old volunteer who collects food, mostly vegetables, for Food Bank SOS, which then distributes it to charity organizations. I’d met her twice at Bronisze market, where she was walking around and pushing her cart between farmers, asking them if they had any goods for charity.

She has a strong character and understands how to deal with the vendors, who have known her for nine years. In many cases, the food the farmers give to Wanda would not go on sale and would end up going to waste. Sometimes, however, they can be quite hesitant to give her their produce and they tell her to come a couple of days later when the vegetables are not fresh enough to sell to their customers.

One of the charities that receives food from Food Bank SOS is Camilian Mission homeless shelter, a place of around 120 residents where I had the chance to take more pictures to illustrate my story. I was at the shelter when food was prepared and served there. It is always hard to take photos of people who have lost their homes. As I expected, not all of them wanted to have their faces shown in my pictures, but we started to talk and I explained the story I was working on. They knew that often the food they are served was intended for the garbage. Nevertheless, they said that the meals still looked fresh and tasty.

Both a representative from Food Bank SOS and the director of a homeless shelter told me that they would get more food if supermarkets, restaurants and catering companies did not have to pay taxes on donations. For this economic reason, these kinds of companies decide to dump food rather than giving it away. Food Bank representatives and the director of the shelter say that, according to Polish law, only the actual producers of the food can donate it without paying tax.

Shooting this story provided me with a picture of how people perceive the freshness of food. In Communist Poland, shelves used to be practically empty but nowadays, in a free market economy, supermarkets are full of all sorts of goods and people tend to buy more and more. In my opinion, they often buy more than they need, which is one of the reasons for food going to waste. On the other hand, Poland is not a particularly rich country and buying food accounts for a large proportion of people’s household budgets here – more than in other EU countries. So in my experience people are careful about wasting food.

For the food that is destined to be thrown away, however, it is great that we have people like Wanda who ensure that some of it is saved and can be consumed by those who need it.

By Kacper Pempel

When Pope Benedict XVI announced last week that he was stepping down, the mood in my country, Poland, was overwhelming. This is one of the most devoutly Catholic countries in Europe, which still proudly identifies itself as the birthplace of Benedict’s predecessor, Pope John Paul II. On the day of the announcement my colleagues went to the church of the Holy Cross in Warsaw. The worshipers coming out of the church were in a state of shock. “It’s so sad. It’s such a shame. But what can we do? I can’t believe it,” said one woman as she left the Holy Cross church in the Polish capital, who gave her name as Maria. “I am very sorry because I really like the Pope. He is continuing the teachings of our Pope (John Paul II).” Janusz, another worshiper, said: “I don’t think it’s true. In my opinion it would not be a good solution. It would definitely be a huge pity for Poles and Catholics.”

I spent the last few months traveling around Poland taking photographs of Polish people demonstrating their Catholic faith: going on pilgrimages, attending mass, children having religious lessons in schools. I photographed the statue of Jesus in Swiebodzin, near the Polish-German border, which stands 33 meters tall. I visited a huge church built since the fall of Communism in farmland in Lichen, in central Poland. As I drove towards the church, its gold-colored dome, 98 meters high, looked incongruous surrounded by cows grazing in a pasture.

The building was so vast that it dwarfed the worshipers and the village around it. I went to another new church in the Warsaw suburb of Wilanow. Filled with young, middle-class families, it stands in stark contrast to the image many people have of Catholicism in Poland, a religion for the old and the poor.

But one incident sticks in my mind from my time trying to capture Catholicism in Poland. It happened while I was at an open-air mass in Jasna Gora, the holiest site in Polish Catholicism, which attracts hundreds of thousands of pilgrims every year. I was trying to photograph a group of worshippers on the grass. As I always do on occasions like this, I was trying to be discreet. But one man, in his 40s and wearing a leather jacket, asked me to stop taking his picture. “Get out of here,” he said. “You’re from UB.” That was the acronym for the Communist-era secret police, which used to spy on worshipers because they were considered potential subversives. I moved away and started taking pictures of another group nearby.

It is a reaction I often get. There is a divide in Polish society between devout Catholics and the increasingly popular secular movement. Secularism is growing in influence, especially among young Poles. They consider themselves Catholics, but don’t go to church every week and do not follow the church’s teachings on issues like contraception or in-vitro fertilization. Because of this change, the more devout Poles feel that they are under threat, they feel persecuted. That, I think, is why they are so suspicious of having their picture taken.

But others are friendly and open. On a pilgrimage last summer from Warsaw to Jasna Gora, I received an extremely warm welcome. The pilgrims, who were mostly students, were traveling hundreds of kilometers (miles) on foot. They shared their food with us when they stopped for lunch, and were more than happy to pose for the camera. They have no worries about the ongoing criticism of the Church, and are not as incensed by the increasingly liberal sentiment in Polish politics.

I got the chance to become a pilgrim myself on a train journey to Rome. Thousands of people crammed the train from Warsaw for the two-day trip in order to attend the beatification mass of John Paul II. As we traveled, the attitude on board was a mix of both devotion and obligation; Poles felt that they owed the late Pope their presence in St Peter’s Square for all he had done for their country. Even after the journey, the pilgrims suffered ten hours of lining up without sleep or complaint to attend the mass, and I stood alongside them. Their pain and sacrifice still astonishes me today.

Looking back on the months I spent recording Poland’s Catholics, I’m struck by their devotion, and the lengths to which they are prepared to go to show that devotion to God. At the same time, I’m also struck by how wary they are, an island of religion in a sea of secularism.

Three weeks of the Euro 2012 adventure are already behind us. Three weeks of hard work, meeting thousands of people, driving thousands of miles and shooting thousands of pictures.

As a photographer based in Poland, I was assigned to cover not only matches but also news stories in Polish cities like Wroclaw, Poznan and Gdansk. So I had a chance to meet people from many different parts of Europe who made the journey here for the soccer fiesta. They were genuine football lovers and real soccer fans.

The Irish fans made the most remarkable impression. The party they threw for all three of their games was incredible and they showed they know how to have fun even when their team is losing. They transformed the Old Market in Poznan into a “green island”, singing and cheering their national team before and after matches and through the night. After a couple of hours sleep they would be back again to kick off the next day’s festivities.

Every Poznan citizen I spoke to – taxi drivers, waiters – said they had been surprised how nice the Irish were and they wouldn’t forget the example they set of how you should behave as a soccer fan on the road.

But it wasn’t only the Irish. I also spent a good deal of time with other nationalities from Groups A and C. I remember Croatian fans dancing with a huge flag and with a red and white board covering half of Poznan Old Market. They also came with a small band of musicians to accompany their national songs.

The day before the quarter-final between Greece and Germany, I met a very nice couple of Greeks, Theano and Paris from Volos. We walked together around the city, where they pointed out influences of their culture on Gdansk’s Old Market. Theano recognized every sculpture depicting Greek gods in a flash, even at night. The next day they were decked out in the blue and white of Greece, cheering their team in peaceful harmony with the German fans.

Poland were unfortunately eliminated at the group stage, but Polish fans stayed on the streets and in the fan zones to watch good quality football and cheer with fans visiting from abroad. And it was heartwarming that almost every Greek, Czech, Irish, Italian, Russian, Croatian, Spanish and German I encountered tried to sing in Polish. – chants like “Polska bialo – czerwoni” (which means Poland red and white) – with Polish fans. I even met Norwegians Ole and Mats who had appointed themselves honorary Polish fans for the tournament (see below).

Euro 2012 is a very big event for Poland. We want to show visitors what a beautiful country we have, how friendly we are and how much change there has been in the 20 years since the arrival of democracy.

I’m very proud of my country’s performance as hosts and comments I heard from visitors like my Reuters colleagues, as well from fans I met, were uniformly positive. Hearing from visiting fans that they will definitely come back is ultimately the best result of this tournament for Poland.

Last weekend I was in the Polish Tatra Mountains to cover traditional horse racing, which marks the end of the annual Highlanders’ Festival, known as the Goralski Karnawal. The race is a competition involving riders; two on every sledge, pulled by horses, referred to in Polish highlander’s dialect as kumoterska gonba, or more commonly “Kumoterki.” The name comes from the type of small sledge used, from past till now, to transport godparents for religious occasions in the area of Podhale.

I wanted to find out how they make komuterki sledges, so I met with folk artist Jan Bieniek who still produces them by hand in a traditional way from a special kind of wood. He is also a judge on the jury of the Kumoterki race. This year, he offered a hand-made sledge especially made for this occasion as one of the prizes. It took him two weeks to make.

I also met with one of the participants of the race, Wojtek Bucki Jr., whose entire family is deeply involved in the highlander festival, especially with all the events involving horses. He was practicing on the track with his uncle Andrzej Bucki and his cousins Bartek Chowaniec and Jan Kuchta a day before the race.

I stayed in Bucki’s family home to watch their preparation for the Sunday events. They treat “Kumoterki” as a very important event, not only as a competition but also as an occasion to meet with other highlanders and take part in a parade called parada gazdowska.

Zofia, Wojtek Junior’s mother of Wojtek Senior’s wife had to clean and varnish all horse decorations from brass. Zofia performs this duty ahead of special occasions, “kumoterki”, “parada gazdowska” and weddings. “It is a shame for a highlander’s family if you can’t see your image reflecting in brass decorations” she said.

I woke up with them early Sunday morning, with a beautiful sunrise over the mountains of Bukowina Tatrzanska, to take pictures of their preparation. Zofia and her daughters were finishing cleaning the decorations and preparing traditional clothes. Men in the horse stable and outside were preparing horses for the parade and kumoterki race. Then we rode on a sledge through the village to where all the events took place.

The residents of Tatra Mountains are very traditional, patriotic people and devoted Catholics. The festival is one of the events that puts traditional culture of their land on display to outsiders. During the Sunday events like the Kumoterki race and Gazdowska and Kumoterska parades, families present their horses with sledges, traditional clothes and habits.

This year, some 30 horses took part in Gazdowska and Kumoterska parades. In different races, like kumoterki race skjoring and skiskjoring races, there were 24 participants and about 20 horses.

Many of the horses trip and fall around the sharp curves, but fortunately none of them or the riders were seriously injured.

After a whole day of attractions we came back to Bucki’s house to celebrate their victory in Kumoterska and Gazdowska parade competition.

Each year we cover at least two main stories from Auschwitz. The first story is at the end of January when there are ceremonies to commemorate the liberation of the death camp by Soviet troops in 1945, and the second story, which happens around May, is called the “March of Living”.

This year the 27th of January marked the 67th anniversary of the death camp liberation by Soviet troops. The ceremonies were subdued, with fewer officials coming than I was used to. So I decided to cover this time in a different way. Not only as a document from the anniversary but from a more emotional point of view.

My first visit to the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum was 7 years ago. I was overwhelmed with emotion. I tried to hide behind my camera and only focus on pictures but it was impossible. I never expected what I saw there, because it is impossible to be prepared for these kinds of views and imaginations which this place develops. I was walking around the museum in Auschwitz and then in Birkenau the whole day and I remember that I was losing power in batteries because it was minus 20 degrees C (-4 degrees F). My fingers where completely frozen. When I came inside the barracks in Birkenau and saw the bunks for prisoners I couldn’t imagine how anyone survived during winter time.

Back then I had to stop my work because of camera batteries. This year I had to stop many times because of the strong feelings inside me. I came prepared with all the extreme survival equipment I normally use to cover ski jumping. But nothing prepares you for the feeling you get from Auschwitz-Birkenau, especially when you remember that the victims had nothing to protect them. Many didn’t survive a single night.

It’s impossible to capture the real nature of places like the crematoria. I was asking myself what be a “good” picture from this place. I decided to be as simple and quiet, and with as much respect for this place as I can. It is a part of the dilemma of how to be artistic in place like Auschwitz. In my opinion you can only show emotions from an artistic point of view but you can’t just look for an artistic angle as a form or composition.

I had a similar situation when I came in front of the Death Wall where the Nazis shot their prisoners. Normally I am there with some officials laying wreaths, but this time I came in front of wall just with other tourists. Again, it was hard to find any “right” picture. I realized that they were taking pictures just like me so I was wondering if there are any differences between us besides that I’m a guy with a professional camera, waiting for the picture as a photographer. First I saw that many times they come just to take a quick picture and leave as quickly as they can, maybe because of lack of time to see whole exhibition or this place of killing horrifies them, just as it does me.

After spending another 7 hours and viewing the exhibitions in Auschwitz and the remains of the camp in Birkenau it is hard to understand how people could do such things to one another. In my opinion it is hard to even call them people.

The Nazis designed and improved the factory of killing and the factory of death. Over 5 years they killed an unimaginable number between 1-1.5 million people. The vast majority were Jews. The second biggest group, from 70 to 75 thousand, were Poles, and the third most numerous, about 20 thousand, the Gypsies. About 15 thousand Soviet POWs and 10 to 15 thousand prisoners of other ethnic backgrounds also died there. When you are visiting blocks with exhibitions there are corridors with thousands of pictures of prisoners hanging on the walls, but this is only a fraction of the number of people exterminated here. But these are people, not numbers.

When you are visiting blocks with exhibitions there are corridors with thousands of pictures of prisoners hanging on the walls which give you opportunity to look at the faces of real people not only numbers…

This year I couldn’t go to the blocks where the remains of prisoners are exhibited, with the tons of hair, thousands of children shoes and spectacle frames taken from them before their death. It was too much for me…

After the official ceremonies of Holocaust survivors was over, I put down my cameras and laid a candle at the Victims Monument at Auschwitz Birkenau to commemorate the victims and our relatives who died in the Death Camp.

Over the years, it became a natural feeling that the pope was Polish. The words ‘pope’ and ‘Pole’ becoming synonyms in my mind. John Paul II visited Poland eight times as the pontiff but I only had one chance to see him live when his papa‐mobile passed my home in 1991. I was 14 years old and took a picture of the event.

Unfortunately, during my professional career I never took a picture of Pope John Paul II. My first such assignment came only after the late pope passed away and I was sent to Rome for his funeral. It was a really hard time with no sleep, no time for eating or bathing. I just wandered about taking pictures of thousands of pilgrims sleeping along the Vatican streets and waiting for several days to attend the funeral ceremony. The air was full of grief. I also queued for hours to get to the St.Peter’s Basilica following an endless stream of people who wanted to honor John Paul II and to take a picture of his body exhibited to the public.

Six years later, it was clear to me that I had to capture pictures from the historic moment of John Paul II’s beatification. I wanted to show the emotions of people traveling from Poland to Rome for the ceremony that was bringing their countryman closer to sainthood. So, I decided to travel together with pilgrims by train from Warsaw to the Vatican. A dedicated train with some 800 pilgrims ‐ including six priests, nuns, families, youths and the elderly ‐ left a Warsaw station on Friday evening and headed for a 27 hour journey to the Vatican.

The trip was not a luxurious one with seating for eight people in each compartment, but a deep religious experience was more important for these people who were well prepared for the inconveniences of the ride. They prayed together and sang religious songs until they slept on mats covering the train’s floors.

How I became a pilgrim – journey to JPII beatification mass. from Kacper Pempel on Vimeo.

I woke up after 3 hours of sleep on the floor of my compartment. I had to get a good spot in the restaurant car. First, I had breakfast there and then in the same place an improvised mass was organized at around 8.30am. Pilgrims gathered in the restaurant car, others prayed while listening to the priest over a speaker system on the train. During the mass, priests offered Holy Communion as they walked from one compartment to the next down the whole train.

My camera shutter worked discreetly at all times. While doing my work, I made acquaintances with several people, who were ready to share their bed with me for another two‐hour nap before we arrived at the destination – San Petro station in the Vatican City at 0:10 am on Sunday. The pilgrims were getting ready, preparing their backpacks, banners and clothes for a long day.

On a regular day a 10‐minute walk takes you from the train station to St.Peter’s Square, but this day was far from ordinary. We’d been walking around passing by thousands of other pilgrims sleeping at the Ponte Vittorio Emanuele Bridge and then I realized how tired and sleepy I was after the train ride. But that was just the beginning. We waited ten more hours among the crowd for the beatification mass, woken every now and then by gates opening on Via Della Conciliazione to allow a number of pilgrims through and closer to the main square.

Thousands waited – sleeping on the ground or even while standing. They covered every inch of the area so it was difficult for me to walk around to take pictures. You could hear languages from all over the world mixing in the air when a French and a Polish group started to cheer jointly: “Vive la Papa!” And everybody envied an Italian group making the best use of their portable coffee machine…

Without the use of toilets and no access to water or food, some people had to seek medical assistance after another several hours. Tired and lost in a sea of crowds, we passed the final part of Villa Della Conciliazione moving several meters over three hours before we finally got to the square. I had to find my group of Polish pilgrims, which I lost in the sea of people. I left my backpack with an American group and started to walk through the crowded square between people sleeping and resting on mats on every inch of the ground. Finally, I found my Polish group. At 10 am as the mass began, there was no sign of tiredness, which changed into prayerful concentration and religious reflection.

After a two day journey with 6 hours of sleep in total I had to concentrate and do my work. It was not so easy, with no chance to move and catch what I had planned – the reactions of people as the beatification of the late Pope John Paul II was announced.

At the end of the mass I returned to the American pilgrims to collect my backpack. But they had given it to the organizers during the mass. Only with the help of an American priest was I finally reunited with the bag, which had been left lying on a nearby electricity box. The priest said we had to thank divine providence for finding it. I discovered later that the beatification mass had taken place on the Sunday of Divine Mercy ‐ a feast officially instituted by John Paul for the Catholic Church in 2000.