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Excerpt from a letter sent by Zofia Rydet to Krystyna Łyczywek, Gliwice, March 15, 1982

Orawa is quite interesting and original, and along the way you can do Chochołów, which is a total revelation. I was there (taking interiors) twice, it is a unique reservation in Poland.

(...)

What I am now doing gives me experience; I know now for certain what I want out of photography and what it can give me. I also know that this kind of consistent, almost scientific and very conscious work not only gives me strength and satisfaction, but it will be my legacy, if the world survives.

(...)

Right now I am working very hard in the darkroom—everything is growing and increasingly fascinates me, though it is sucking the remains of my physical strength. But summer is fairly long, and I would like to devote it to making trips and to photography.

(...)

I have so little time, it goes so quickly, and the sense that I have so little left changes the old rules and lets me totally re-evaluate certain established values. At the same time, old age is increasingly revolting, and it’s hard to come to terms with it, and harder still to fight it, and I still have so many plans, I could still do so much if I had the strength and time.

(...)

And I was so pleased that after handing in the dummy of the album I could do my marvelous interiors. I say “marvelous” because only in the darkroom do I see what I have captured, and it’s as though I have photographed them a second time, I re-encounter those people and the atmosphere of their houses and the various details, which perhaps I did not even notice at first, and I am glad that I have them all and I have the marvelous power to maintain their lives, perhaps much longer than their lives will really last. I can show them to others.