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Excerpt from a letter sent by Zofia Rydet to Krystyna Łyczywek, Biały Dunajec, August 12, 1984

I spent all day first cooking, washing dishes, cleaning, and then again, and I played with the little one [Zofia Augustyńska], whom I love to bits. I soaked up the family feeling, but spending time with them is devilishly tiring. They are all very beautiful women’s tasks, though ultimately hopeless, and perhaps even a bit debilitating. Another matter entirely is that I hate cooking and I am happiest when I needn’t waste time on all that. Now, on the other hand, I am on cloud nine. I’m in Biały Dunajec with a young photographer, also named Zofia. She goes to photography school, has signed up for the GTF [Gliwice Photographic Society], and I took her along on a ten-day plein-air. We have two tiny rooms in a new house with conveniences. The lunches by the summer camp next door are very good. We walk all day and ride about the local villages; we take photographs. She is also constantly taking pictures, by her own compulsion. I found more beautiful pictures for my new John Paul II photobook, in new homes.

I’ll have to change the dummy once more. I was in Krakow earlier on and managed to make contact with the most interesting people at Tygodnik Powszechny, like Turowicz, Szyma, etc. I photographed their homes, where the Pope is also present. In August I’ll be returning to Krakow, to the homes of the closest friends of the Holy Father. This will delay the photobook again, but perhaps it will make it more interesting—well, and my Record is getting huge. I am also meant to be meeting with Cardinal Macharski.

(...) Here in Dunajec I took fourteen rolls of film, around five hundred photos; that’s a lot of material, so much can be done with it, especially if you’re conscious, if you know what you want. (...)

This is the last day of my stay. I am very content and happy that I managed to find so many scraps of lives that I liked and that moved me, and in the rolls of film, which I have to develop now, I have captured human lives, old, dying houses, and all these things which are swiftly passing and expiring—and now it will be mine, and I will almost create it to come to life once more. If only I had more energy; all day I carry about my equipment and sometimes it hurts so much. I’m becoming more and more hunchbacked.