The Road to My First MXGP

In just a few days, I’ll be attending an MXGP World Championship round for the very first time. Not long ago, I thought this trip would become the biggest milestone in my journey as a photographer. Today, I see it a little differently. The closer I get to Loket in the Czech Republic, the more I find myself thinking less about the event itself and more about the road that brought me there.

Zawodnik motocrossowy dynamicznie pokonuje piaszczysty zakręt, wzbijając chmurę kurzu podczas emocjonujących zawodów.

Many years ago, I bought my first camera. The reason was simple – I was playing amateur football, and we wanted to have decent photos from our matches. Someone else was using my camera, but the results never really convinced me. I remember thinking, "Maybe I should try it myself." I had no idea that such an ordinary decision would stay with me for so many years.

Then motocross entered my life. I attended a Cross Country event where I saw Ozo working with his camera. We already knew each other, but it was only then that I discovered he was photographing motocross and was already one of the best motocross photographers in Poland. I don't remember the exact moment when I consciously decided that this would become the sport I wanted to photograph. I simply kept coming back. The atmosphere, the people, the sound of the engines, the dust, and everything happening around the track slowly drew me in until motocross became something I couldn't imagine living without.

Then, as it often does, life took a different turn. Family, children and everyday responsibilities meant my camera spent several years sitting on a shelf. Not because I stopped loving photography, but because there were things that mattered more. When my children grew older, I returned to my passion. It started quietly—with pit bike practice sessions, then motocross training days, my first races and many more weekends at the track. It didn't take long before I realised I had come back to exactly where I had always wanted to be.

Over the last three years, I've often asked myself what motocross has really taught me. At first, I thought I was simply learning how to take better photographs. Later, I realised I was actually learning photography itself. I spent countless evenings in front of my computer trying to understand light, colour and post-processing. I searched for my own style. I still remember the moment I stopped being afraid of a tilted horizon. Before that, I believed every horizon had to be perfectly straight. With time, I discovered that photography isn't about blindly following rules, but about understanding them well enough to use them with purpose.

Interestingly, I never learned motocross in the way many people might imagine. I never analysed races frame by frame. I never studied track layouts or spent hours trying to figure out where a rider would look best in a corner. I simply started to feel the sport. It's difficult to explain. With every race I attended, I instinctively knew when to press the shutter. Not because I had planned every shot, but because the moment simply felt right.

The last few months, however, have made me realise something else.

My trip to Slovakia and preparing for my first MXGP have completely changed the way I look at motocross. I still love photographs of riders carving through corners, soaring over jumps and disappearing behind clouds of dust. Those are the images that made me fall in love with motocross photography in the first place.

But more and more often, I find myself thinking that they are only one small part of a much bigger story.

I've started noticing things that somehow escaped my attention before. Mechanics working late into the evening. Parents sacrificing their time, money and energy so their children can line up behind the starting gate. The emotions riders carry just before entering the track, and the silence that often follows the final chequered flag. I realised that motocross doesn't begin at the first corner, and it certainly doesn't end at the finish line.

It is a world built by people most spectators never even notice.

More and more, I find myself believing that a photograph of a rider in a corner is simply the final frame of a much larger story. That story begins much earlier—in a garage, beside a race van, inside a workshop, or around the kitchen table where the next race weekend is being planned. It is made up of countless hours of preparation, hundreds of litres of fuel, worn tyres, sleepless nights and thousands of kilometres travelled for just a few minutes on the track.

And somehow, that's the part of motocross that fascinates me the most.

I feel that photography grows together with the photographer. First, you learn how to use the camera. Then you learn about light, composition and editing. Eventually, you develop a sense for the perfect moment. But there comes a point when you stop searching only for a great photograph. Instead, you begin searching for a story.

At least, that's what happened to me.

For me, photography stopped being just the act of pressing the shutter a long time ago. It is no longer only about the right camera, the perfect lens or flawless timing. It has become a lesson in patience, humility and awareness. It has taught me how to see. Or perhaps more importantly, it has taught me about myself and about how the way we see the world changes as we grow.

The closer my departure gets, the more I realise something else. For a while, I believed that the road to MXGP depended entirely on me. I thought all it took was determination, a few emails and the willingness to go. Reality quickly proved that it wasn't nearly that simple. There was a moment when I received a rejection, and it felt as though the whole plan had come to an end before it had even begun.

Then something happened that reinforced everything I had already begun to understand about this sport. Several people gave me their time. They wrote emails, made phone calls and did everything they could to help me. Not because they had to, but simply because they wanted to.

Maybe that's exactly why this trip to Loket means so much to me.

In just a few days, I'll be setting off on the road to my very first MXGP. Not long ago, I thought I was going there to take photographs. Today, I feel that I'm going there to gain something far more valuable—experience. And if I return from Loket not only with photographs I'm proud of, but also with a new perspective on photography and motocross, that will be the greatest souvenir I could possibly bring home.

This is only the beginning of the story. Very soon I'll be on my way to Loket, and when I return, I'll come back here to share what I saw, what this journey taught me, and the stories I was able to tell through my photographs.

I hope you'll be here to continue this journey with me.