For As long as I can remember, nature has always been my second home; time spent with it gave me joy and happiness.

When I was only a little boy, I used to jump on my tiny bicycle and venture through the neighborhood to a forest (few kilometers away). Understandably, when returning from my adventures, my Parents weren't impressed not knowing where I was. But they saw that it made me happy and helped me to appreciate nature, bringing me and my sister out to the forest as often as they could.

Years went by, and my love for nature has evoked new passions within me. By the age of 10 I have started taking piano lessons and soon after joined a music academy. There I have learned that apparently my hearing was good and I was a promising prospect for becoming a musician. Unfortunately this adventure didn't last long, as it has became apparent that I'm not a very patient student and decided to quit.

Then came in sports. I suppose this was a natural way of things to evolve as I was always active cycling and running around, since early mornings to the late hours of each evening. Because of my height, I have started playing basketball, which stayed with me for good few years. I've also tried and competed in many other sport disciplines, but something was missing, I did not feel complete ... I never had a competitive desire. I have always retreated to nature, to places where I could relax and contemplate to understand the growing imbalance between us Humans and the Natural world.

It was late 2005 when I have stopped on one of my cycles and decided, that I want to start creating something. Something that will help me express myself and find a deeper understanding of things around me. Something I can use as a bridge of translation of the very Nature I've cherished, to others around me.

I have decided - I wanted to take photographs.

Just like that, after making this decision, my whole life began to take a new shape. A new passion started to emerge and I felt that this is something I always wanted to do ...

After purchasing my first camera (which was the first amateur DSLR - a Canon 300D) a whole new universe of creative opportunities opened up in front of me.

When I have relocated to Ireland (back in the summer 2006) and went up to see the Wicklow Mountains for the first time - I fell in love with this Landscape. I knew that I could not only take images, but to create them. Single frame shots were somehow not enough and I knew I must move out of a comfort zone of "button pressing" and find a way to praise the Landscape exactly as I saw it with my own eyes.

Panoramic format ! This was the answer.

It took me months and years of research to learn the new techniques and processes. I have also received a great inspiration from a fellow Artist Photographer - David Anthony Hall (www.davidanthonyhall.com), who was one of very few photographers that made it to a Gallery which was mainly showcasing paintings.

David's panoramic creations made a huge impression on me and I knew that this kind of photography is exactly what I was always striving towards and the kind of Art I wanted to create.

Since then the landscape became a window through which I see the world.

A view, a place, a vista, contours and colors.

The lakes, the windswept trees, mountain ranges with their snowy summits. A morning light of the rising sun, the evening play of the moody clouds. These natural sanctuaries give me distance and restore my balance, away from the rushing world of our daily lives.

My inner expression of these places is the image. It can behold and a memory of a unique moment. A moment I was waiting for so long. Preparing, learning the location, visiting and re-visiting, finally becoming friends with it.

Only then I have a chance to be blessed with witnessing a landscape's full beauty. Only then can I quietly capture it in the only imaginable to me way - with a photograph.

A composite of tens or even hundreds of images enclosed in one creation, celebrated by immaculate coalescence of all the elements: the light, the shadow, clouds and sun, the tree and the mountain.

Nature is my inspiration. Landscape and photography are my craft.

Panoramic is the wide vision, which helps me to understand the world better.

Bartosz Murzicz

Press Release by Agora Gallery, New York