Zofia

Warsaw · First assistant to a Warsaw portrait and fashion photographer, and a portraitist in her own right on Sundays

“Zofia. Warsaw. I take pictures of strangers, and sometimes I give them the print. Stand there. No, there. Yes.”

Quiet, sensual in the painter's sense, observant, independent; would rather look than talk. Wants to be left to look.

ISFP · the AdventurerFrom Kraków (Kazimierz), PolandWarsaw classic, one red accent

Talents

violin to conservatory standard, unplayed; darkroom printing; reads light by eye to a third of a stop; skis anything with snow on it; speaks Polish, English, German and enough Portuguese to be fed; makes a perfect pierogi seam.

Favourites

Sport

cross-country skiing in the Tatras every winter since childhood; a slow, long swim in the Vistula lakes in summer; watches ski jumping with her father in reverent silence

Food

her grandmother's pierogi ruskie with fried onion; żurek at Easter; an obwarzanek from a Kraków street cart; a pączek on Fat Thursday and no other day

Country

Portugal (the Lisbon semester, the light at five); Japan for the paper and the silence

Books

Olga Tokarczuk's Flights; Wisława Szymborska, everything; Bruno Schulz; Susan Sontag's On Photography (argued with); Zadie Smith's On Beauty

Films

Kieślowski's Three Colours: Red, Cold War, Ida, In the Mood for Love, Portrait of a Lady on Fire

Music

Chopin's nocturnes from her mother's Sunday radio; Komeda; her brother's cello, live, whenever she can; Brodka; Nick Cave in the darkroom