simply human is the photography of François Struzik, a Belgian photo-reporter.

simply human is always on the human side.

simply human because our differences are our wealth, yet our human essence is shared.

François’ approach is rooted in engagement, presence, and the attempt to apprehend the world, linking aesthetic observation with social reflection. 

François Stanislas Struzik is a Belgian documentary photographer. His work explores social, cultural, and religious realities, combining aesthetic observation with a reflective approach rooted in human experience.

François, born in 1974, lives and works in Belgium. From a young age, he knew he wanted to be a photographer, though the path was not direct. He holds Master’s degrees in Slavic Languages and Political Science from ULB (Brussels) and studied at the Jagiellonian University in Poland.

He began his career as a photo-reporter for magazines, in Pakistan, India, Sierra Leone, Kosovo... focusing on social issues: women’s and children’s rights, access to water and healthcare...

He later worked extensively with NGOs and international humanitarian agencies, documenting their work and the realities faced by the communities they support. Over the years, François has led workshops, participated in juries, and mentored photographers. He collaborates regularly with international NGOs and co-founded Image of Dignity, a non-profit uniting photographers, journalists, and filmmakers to support humanitarian initiatives. His work has been produced in partnership with organizations including UNICEF, IOM, WFP, Plan International, Terre des Hommes, and SOS Faim, bearing witness to both challenges and the dignity of human experience.

Since 2005, he has fully dedicated himself to photography. His long-term projects address themes ranging from port workers in Gdańsk (Stocznia Gdańska) to the aftermath of the eathquahe in Kashmir (State of Shock), the imaginary maritime city of HavendoK, and more recently Boxing Girls. He has also developed major bodies of work on folk Sufism across the Muslim world (Places of Surrender) and the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem, as well as Winterreise, a project that navigates between documentary photography and fiction, focusing on landscapes, borders, and inner perception. More recently, his practice has evolved towards a more reflective form of documentary photography, shaped by sustained fieldwork and personal engagement with the contexts he documents.