Everyday life of villages
Chomętowska was very well acquainted with the villages surrounding her family estate – she was familiar with the names and stories of their residents, who knew her as “the lady with the camera.” She was able to document the customs, everyday work, communication and ways of coping with the abundance of water in Polesie. Her photographs show, in detail, such events as washing garments, fishing, transporting hay on boats, and drying flax, as well as chatting women and bored children. She didn’t aim to focus on presenting the everyday reality in the impoverished Polesian community or the dramatic poverty and lack of education, but nevertheless these themes always remained in the background, and emerged in the details: for example, bare feet, children’s labour, or scruffy clothes.
