It started as a bucket list. Then one journey changed the list itself.
I am a photographer, filmmaker, traveller and documentary storyteller focused on Namibia.
What began as a personal journey has grown into photography, films, music, talks and long-term projects connecting Poland and Namibia.
Papa Janusz was never a carefully planned brand. It began with something much simpler: the need to rebuild my life.
I did not begin with a grand plan.
After illness, years of limitations and the comfortable excuses that often come with them, I simply needed to start moving again.
Walking became hiking. Hiking became mountains. Small goals slowly turned into bigger ones, and somewhere along the way I understood something very simple:
Nobody was going to do it for me.
The mountains taught me persistence. Bungee jumping taught me something different — that courage is sometimes simply coming back.
The first time I stood above Aradena Gorge, I did not jump.
A year later, I returned for one reason: to finish what I had started.
The bucket list was never really about collecting achievements.
It gave me reasons to move, leave the comfortable option behind and occasionally do something slightly stupid.
Some goals were realistic. Some were ambitious. A few were probably ridiculous.
But the list did its job.
It was never the destination. It was the reason to start moving.
Everyone asks me why Namibia.
I honestly do not know.
That was simply where fate and the map pointed me.
The landscapes and wildlife were extraordinary, but it was the people, conversations and everyday moments that stayed with me the longest. I became increasingly interested in the country beyond safari routes, tourism brochures and simple explanations.
Across three journeys, I travelled around 9,000 kilometres through Namibia. Technically, I could have marked it as completed.
But Namibia was never completed.
It changed the list itself.
From my first encounters with the Himba community, I was fascinated by the strength of their identity, the traditions that remain alive and the way those traditions exist alongside a rapidly changing modern world.
At first, I was simply curious. Then I began to look closer, ask more questions and realise how much of what we see from the outside can be simplified, romanticised or misunderstood.
It was there that I met Ueii, a Himba woman and guide who patiently shared her knowledge with me and helped me understand much more about everyday life, traditions and the realities of her community.
Those encounters led to deeper questions — about change and impermanence, contrasts and what happiness actually means.
Namibia turned my worldview upside down — in the best possible way.
And then the story became personal.
Later, I married Ivondia — a woman from Great Kunene whose Himba roots made that world part of my own life too.
Along the way came countless other remarkable people who became part of this story. Some stayed for a moment. Others changed its direction completely.
What began as a destination became part of my life.
Travel changed what I wanted to look for — and what I wanted to create.
Photography had already been part of my life for many years, but Namibia pushed it increasingly towards documentary work, people and visual storytelling.
Film came later.
Before Namibia, I had made only a couple of films from the mountains. Then photography alone stopped being enough. Some stories needed movement, voices, sound, music and time.
Meeting Ivondia added another perspective. We often see the same place differently — my experience begins from the outside, while hers comes from a country she knows as home.
Somewhere along the way, Black & White Trails grew naturally from that connection.
It became our way of bringing two perspectives together without pretending they are the same — and of telling stories about Namibia with more patience, honesty and context.
Now, we are building a long-term life and creative road between Poland and Namibia.
And then came something else I had never planned.
My daughter suggested that some of my experiences from Namibia deserved more than films and photographs — they should also become conversations with people.
That idea grew into talks about Namibia, culture, everyday life and the things that happen when different worlds try to understand each other, including an invitation from the University of Silesia.
Photography, film, music, Black & White Trails, talks — none of them were part of some master plan.
They simply grew from the road.
The direction is clear.
1. NAMIBIA — The Long Road
Explore Black & White Trails
2. RYSY— Poland
Highest Peak of Poland
3. KILIMANJARO — Tanzania
My own Everest
4. KÖNIGSTEIN (Brandberg) – Namibia
