John Sobczak

Background

About John Sobczak

John Sobczak was born in Detroit in 1960. He has lived and worked through out the Detroit area his whole carrier. John’s interest in photography began in the days of film and large format cameras and continued into these days of digital photography and computerized imagery. He draws inspiration from the everyday, the rights of passage so often over looked, the structures which act as our foundation, the individuals of influence who set the communal conscience. The passing of time as reflected in a city and the people of heart who give it all meaning. John has one tattoo, on his left forearm for his daughter, je crois en toi, translation, I believe in you. He has had two dogs, both blind and one cat who’s vision was fine. John attended the Center for Creative Studies until funds became an issue, he returned in 2009 to teach. The first celebrity John photographed was Mark “The Bird” Fidrych while he was still in high school, the second was Bob Hope. John has run a marathon, biked a century and completed two triathlons where he finished dead last in the swim. John has been to the top of the Mackinac Bridge as well as a mile under Cleveland in a salt mine. As a teenager he once set his house on fire while taking a photograph. John’s father was a self employed mason who passed away while working, John was 8. His mother was a nurse at the VA hospital first in Detroit and then Ann Arbor. He speaks two sentences of Polish, His first car, a Mustang convertible was painted with a roller to hide the rust. He has pumped gas, baked donuts, laid sod, spent time as a lifeguard and worked the midnight shift at a 7/11. John plays no musical instruments. As a student, John once talked actor Jeff Daniels into sitting for a portrait. Jeff has since been on the cover of one of his books and wrote the forward for another. John is left handed. There are few images of him in front of the camera. John loves to teach. John’s last exhibit, The heArt of Dance, Detroit, debuted at the Detroit Institute of Arts who in addition have a collection of his portraits from the book, Motor City Memoirs in their permanent collection. Other portraits are in the collections of The Cleveland Museum of Arts, Dossin Great Lakes Museum, Detroit Historical Society and the main branch of the Detroit Public Library. He has received numerous awards for both his commercial as well as his fine art work and has 5 books to his credit. Among them, A Motor City Year, published by Wayne State Press and his most recent, Portraits in Motion which debuted in 2018.