'Magda at 19 came to meet Petter Hegre after winning a beauty contest in Poland and they did two stunning sessions, the first in the forest with its changing light and surreal shadows; the second in an abandoned factory, the contrast of all that dust and old steel against the tall, skinny child-like figure of Magda, naked in an unfamiliar landscape, the perfect metaphor of the changes that have taken place in eastern Europe during her lifetimes. Magda had been working in a sewing shop repairing clothes before winning the beauty contest in Warsaw and stripped her clothes off for the first time for the Hegre camera. '