The very first sentence Mikolaj Nowacki said as a child was, “Look, Dad, a ship is floating by.” It was a fascination with boats on the Baltic Sea that continues to influence his photographic work to this day.

Nowacki grew up in Poland with two parents who are law professors, and he first tried his hand at law. But ten years into it, he had a change of heart, falling hard for the craft of documentary photography. He abandoned his doctoral studies and picked up a camera instead.

“I learned the rule of thirds and thought I was a National Geographic photographer,” says Nowacki of his first experience learning photography.

He’s now been practicing photography for 14 years and says his boyhood fascination