After the January Uprising in the 1860s many prominent Poles had to emigrate for political reasons. After leaving the country they mainly headed for Western Europe or the United States of America, and Scandinavia was a much less popular direction. However, it was the latter that was chosen by Ludwik Szaciński, who is now regarded as one of the first professional photographers in Norway. He opened a studio in Christiania (today's Oslo) and his services were sought for by the most eminent personages of that time, including the king of Norway

Today a large collection of Ludwik Szaciński’s photographs (taken both by himself and in the studio run by his wife after his death) can be found in the Museum of Oslo. It houses one of the largest and most important photograph collections in the country, and Szaciński's works constitute its prominent part. The online database contains almost 2,500 records linked to the name of the Polish photographer. He took photographs of all the famous and important politicians of the time, military men, writers, actors, athletes and celebrities. A review of Szaciński's work gives an insight into the life of Christiania at the end of the19th century and the beginning of the 20th.

The road to Norway
Ludwik Szaciński earned the nickname of "the royal photographer" thanks to the recognition he received from Oskar II, the king of Norway from 1872 to 1905. In 1888 he admitted Szaciński to his court as an official photographer. It was a great success for the former insurgent.

Szaciński was born on 16 April 1844 in Suwałki, where his family had moved from the village of Virbalis (Wierzbołów), not far from the current Polish-Lithuanian border. Ludwik was the fourth of eleven children of Feliks Szaciński, who worked for the Suwałki Credit Society, and his wife Józefa née Frydrych. He was educated in Warsaw, where he was staying when the January Uprising broke out. He was sent to a Russian prison for taking part in the fights. During his escape he was wounded in the leg, which left him with a limp for the rest of his life.

Looking for a new place to live, he wandered through Europe - he visited Vienna and Paris, he went to Switzerland several times. In Stockholm he became associated with the royal court, where he did dog training. Together with his younger brother Kazimierz and two friends, Władysław Strutyński and Michał Wielgoławski, he set off on a journey to Malmö, and then to Christiania. Along the way, they casually earned money by taking photographs. Ludwik Szaciński learnt this profession before the January Uprising, during his travels in Bavaria, when he had a job in the studio of the famous daguerreotypist Carl Albert Dauthendey in Würzburg.

He started his career in Norway without any money or connections. At first he still stuck with his friends, but later their paths diverged. Despite this, Szaciński managed to make a name for himself in an industry that was already quite developed, as there were about 20 photographers active in Christiania at that time.

The photographer
Ludwik Szaciński appears in the memoir “Moi współcześni. Wśród obcych” (My contemporaries. Among strangers) by Stanisław Przybyszewski, who visited Christiania because of the Norwegian origin of his wife Dagny Juel. In his memoirs he describes the beginnings of Szaciński's career while still in Stockholm and his meeting with King Charles XV during a parade. The king was so captivated by the cool composure and decisiveness of the handsome young man taking a photo of the ceremony that he started a conversation with the photographer and learned about his other passion, training hunting dogs. As a result Szaciński was given charge of the king’s kennel.

Throughout his life Ludwik Szaciński tried to combine these two passions. He spent his free time in a hunting lodge on the island of Ormøya, doing hunting and fishing. He established his photographic studio in 1869 in the main street of today’s Oslo, Karl Johans gate. There he took photographs of members of the royal family, aristocracy and important cultural figures, such as the polar explorer Roald Amundsen or the writer Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson. Szaciński had the honour of taking the posthumous picture of King Charles XV, and he also photographed King Oscar II. One of his models was another Pole who made a name for himself in Scandinavia, Henryk Bukowski.

Szacinski's output is dominated by portraits, but one can also find snapshots of old Christiania and hunting themes, and e.g. he was commissioned by the police to make portraits of the detained prostitutes. He won several awards both in Norway and abroad and many Norwegian photographers were apprenticed to his studio.

W dorobku Szacińskiego przeważają portrety, ale można też znaleźć ujęcia dawnej Christianii i motywy myśliwskie. Na zamówienie policji robił portrety zatrzymanych prostytutek. Zdobył szereg nagród zarówno w Norwegii, jak i za granicą. W jego pracowni kształciło się wielu norweskich fotografów.

Family life
In 1871 Szaciński married Hulda Hansen. His wife was involved in his work, and after his death she ran the studio herself. Szacinski's passion for photography was shared by his sister Józefa, who lived with Ludwik in Christiania for some time, but she missed her homeland so much that she returned to Suwałki and opened her own studio there. Ludwik's brother Kazimierz also ran his own photographic studio in Christiania for some time and then settled in Ålesund, where he was one of the founders of the Photographic Society. Stanisław (Stanni), Ludwik Szaciński's son, took over his father's trade. His studio "Stn. Szacinski jr." was initially located at Kongens gate 12 in Christiania (1893-1910), then it was moved to Tønsberg (1910-1913) and then to Skien (1913-1931).

Although Ludwik Szaciński was granted Norwegian citizenship in 1882, he felt a stranger in this country until the end of his life. In the abovementioned memoirs Stanisław Przybyszewski describes him as a man "whose face was overshadowed by heavy, gloomy melancholy". Przybyszewski saw him a few days before Szaciński's suicide: he killed himself on 8 July 1894 in the hunting lodge on the island of Ormøya. He was buried in Oslo with great honours.

For the next few years Ludwik Szaciński's photographic studio was run by his wife Hulda. Initially still at Karl Johans gate 4, and later, due to renovations, it was moved to Karl Johans gate 20, where it functioned until 1914.