“My intention is to get the viewer interested in what the model is thinking,” says Dorota Gorecka of Poland when I ask her what gets people so engrossed in her portraits of women. She began playing with photography equipment in the unused studio at the advertising agency she worked at. Spending more and more time here led to her getting hooked on photography. She specializes in working under natural light conditions and working with models to produce moody photographs.

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Conceptualizing a solid idea behind a photo series is something not a lot of us do. We tend to get inspired and try to somehow recreate the mood or look of a photo we’ve seen somewhere. But how many of us sketch down ideas that come to us and then experiment with different lighting and various lenses to create that vision we had? Dorota Gorecka gets some of her inspiration from Dutch painters of the Golden Age period. She looks out for places that appeal to her and then tries to work with available light at a visually striking time of the day. Some of these portraits had me staring in awe.

The Essential Photo Gear Used by Dorota Gorecka

Dorota told us

Canon 5D mark IV

Sigma 24-70 mm Art lens

Canon 70-200mm F2.8

4 Polaroid cameras

My first camera was given to me by my husband, as were all the others, and it was a Canon amateur SLR. This brand is actually with me until today.

The Phoblographer: Hi Dorota: Please tell us about yourself and how you got into photography.

Dorota Gorecka: I live in Poland. I started to take pictures when I was a mature woman in my forties. At first, I thought it was too late to start something new, but soon I found out that it was just wrong thinking. I met many fantastic middle-aged people who started their adventure with a new hobby with great enthusiasm and joy. It charged me with good energy, and I no longer thought about how old I was but about the fact that I wanted to take pictures. My husband, who is a photographer himself, got me interested in photography. From the very beginning, I knew that the subject of my photos would be a human being. At that time, I worked in an advertising agency which had a photographic studio. It was standing empty; nobody was using it. I thought it was a great opportunity to start playing with photography there. I started inviting friends over to take pictures. The meetings were lovely, and we all had a great time.

After a year, I knew I would always do this, that I needed it and that it made me happy.

The Phoblographer: A lot of your work focuses on the female physique. Please, tell us more about this.

Dorota Gorecka: I like a certain type of silhouette. Petite, young women with virtually no strongly defined gender features. Androgynous even. I don’t want to show their bodies in a sensual way. I prefer to emphasize their femininity with a delicate pose.

As for lenses. today I prefer zooms. My favourite lens is Sigma 24-70 mm from Art series. I actually do not take it off the body. This lens gives me a lot of freedom of shooting. I often find myself in places which do not allow me to take a step forward or backward. Standing in a very cramped, cluttered room or, for example, on a stone in the middle of a rushing stream, thanks to the variable focal length of the lens I have a chance to get a frame that I have just thought of.

The Phoblographer: Tell us how you approach a shoot. How do you collect the ideas needed for it, and what kind of preparation (emotionally and otherwise) goes into an on location shoot.

Dorota Gorecka: I usually start by finding an interesting place. Once I find one, I think about how to use it in an interesting way. By place, I mean a place in a particular light (at a particular time of day). And this is the moment when I decide which model I’m going to invite to the session, what outfits or props I’m going to use. I arrange the outline of several frames in my head. I...