Warsaw Memories - Last Summer In Warsaw

Last summer when I was in Warsaw, everything was just right.

I can’t really explain it but it felt like I was a part of the city I left 15 years ago once again. Physically and mentally. I felt like it was still inside me. Like we were connected forever. Like I never left.

It’s been many years since I felt at home in Warsaw and after my departure, a profound feeling of nostalgia kept creeping in. I kept imagining how my life would have turned out if I had have never left. I imagined lying on grass listening to Slawa Przybylska, hopping on trams, attending fabulous gallery openings, philharmonic concerts, going for walks down the river on warm summer evenings.

I felt torn, like every Pole abroad who dreams about yellow autumn leaves, hot beetroot soup and old Polish songs. I was nostalgic for my homeland and I cursed the moment of my departure as dramatically as Chopin once did when in September 1831 he learned that the uprising had been crushed…

I absolutely love the drama, the sadness, the romanticism, the suffering, the yearning for something symbolic. Yearning for the past. For simplicity. For belonging.

There is something in Warsaw’s air

I don’t know if it’s my imagination but I feel like Warsaw breathes secrecy, realism, humanity and tender feeling. It oozes creativity, love and purity. At least to me… It’s mysterious.

During those few days in August, there was something sad in the air, something nostalgic and familiar… something very real. I guess it was my realisation of being fragmented. Realisation of the lost years, lost friendships and forgotten form of expression with my own mother language.

Before I left Poland I decided to shoot. I wanted to shoot around the Palace of Science and Culture which I adore. Where my childhood memories live. Where history lives. Where the city’s heartbeat is.

I was lucy to collaborate with Moons Varsovie, young and super talented bridal designers based in Warsaw, and Marta Wolniak, up and coming fashion stylist, who helped me to put everything together, finding Oscar De La Renta jewelry pieces and other gems for the photo session.

I can’t wait to get back and be surrounded by people I admire, by endless creativity.

Real as hell humanity

I left Warsaw feeling hungry for more but at the same time satisfied with what I have discovered and felt for the very first time in years. A sense of belonging. Sense of fulfilment.

The yearning for higher culture, for greater growth, for higher art and for being… Being in the moment. Surrounded by the smell of wild elderberry.

'One is always at home in one's past...'
― Vladimir Nabokov, Speak, Memory

Special thanks to my amazing editor friend who made sense out of all my blabbing and to Carmencita Film Lab for beautiful scans of my film negatives.

All images are shot on Contax 645 + Fuji 400 H