Poland, 15 years later.

A portrait I captured of my grandmother in February 2025

In February of 2025, I unexpectedly found myself with an urgent reason to return to my hometown in Poland.. It was rather unexpected as my family had just returned from Canada the previous month and were settling back into our usual winter routine here in Japan.

I had found out that my grandmother was not doing so well and it seemed at the time that neither time nor health were on her side. It is rather embarrassing to admit that the last time I had visited Poland was back in 2010. A good many years had passed since then, and much had changed, or so I was to learn. Just a few days later I was waiting at the boarding gate in Narita Airport by myself, feeling slightly apprehensive for the almost fifteen-hour direct flight departing at midnight, as well as what awaited me once I landed and made my way to my hometown. On the other hand, I have to admit I also felt a sense of excitement for an old nostalgic memory of taking an unexpected solo trip to another country, with a camera in hand.

The last time I had visited Poland, I was also there on a sudden trip, though that time was to attend my grandfather’s funeral, as a photographer. It was an absolute whirlwind of a time but it left a rather significant impression on me for a variety of reasons, not least of which was photographing the funeral itself.

My uncle, helping to run the farm and taking care of my grandmother.

This time felt a lot like that previous trip, though I would be traveling on my own, rather than with family members.  Back in 2010, I didn’t have the opportunity to go off on my own and do my own thing, let alone explore parts of Warsaw as we quickly headed to the rural north-east of Poland where my hometown was located.

There is much I could say about family, about returning home after so many years, and about how profoundly the country had changed since I last saw it. That trip reshaped my image of Poland and inspired me to return with my wife and daughter in the near future. For now, though, I’d rather focus on a couple of portraits that, somewhat uncharacteristically, I found myself genuinely satisfied with.

One of the decisions I made for this trip was to limit the gear I took with me. I ended up bringing just three prime lenses, though I spent most of the trip using just two. Prior to this trip I’d been spending a lot more time with more classic manual-focus lenses which had helped me take a slower and more deliberate approach, particularly in portraiture. One other quality I wanted these portraits to possess was a more traditional and imperfect image that had a filmic aesthetic. A significant part of the trip was captured using the Helios 44-2, in particular the portraits. I knew from the onset that a lot of this experience would be written into my memory, and I had wanted to preserve it through a lens that didn’t give a a clinical representation of an event shaped by conflicting emotions.

Despite the challenges and limitations, I think it resulted in images that were true to my original vision. I’d like to talk some more about this in a future blog entry.