Photography is a very specific medium. Its power lies in that what seems to be impossible. It is able to capture the moment or stop time and pictures that it registers stay the same forever – unchanged and literal.

The oldest photographs of Nowy Targ that we know were taken in 1880s, the latest in 1989. Those photos are relatively late. It is sufficient to remind that the first photography of Zakopane was taken by Malcjusz Dutkiewicz in 1860 and the series of twelve views of Cracow was created by Karol Beyer already in 1858. It may be possible that there are some more undiscovered photographs of Nowy Targ, since the roads to the mountains usually led through the town and many photographers who were travelling in that region with their cameras stopped exactly at that place.

In the oldest photo of Nowy Targ (Photo No. 511) we can see the northern-east corner of the main square with its storied town houses and already non-existent two corner, single-storeyed houses with high, diagonal roofs. On the Sobieski street (which at that time was called Waksmundzka Street), adjacent to the main square, stand in a raw, gabled, wooden houses with pediment roofs covered with shingle, that were characteristic for the buildings of Nowy Targ. From over these roofs, against the background of the cloudless sky appear gentle sides of the Gorce Mountains. It is sunny, summer afternoon, the eaves are casting shadows that in the photo can be seen as dark streaks on the facades of the houses. The wind blowing through the wide open windows of the storeyed town house is agitating the curtains slightly. By the town house, there are standing strollers. The main square is almost empty, only before the entry of the shop called “Uniwersalny handel”, owned by Karol Laur, there are standing two men talking.

Against the background of the Town Hall’s white walls (which at that time was one-storeyed) appears the unclear figure of a boy who is looking with strong interest at the photographer taking photos nearby. Today it is impossible to establish who was the man that caught this particular moment with this non-existent view and by doing so opened the history of photography in Nowy Targ. The most certain version is that it was one of the pioneers of photography in Tatra region who, at that time, was staying at Nowy Targ, may be just for a while, during his journey to Zakopane, where he was guided by the passion of exploring and capturing the views of the Tatra region. However, there must have been something that he found particularly interesting in that place as he decided to take out all his heavy and complicated photographic equipment in order to immortalize the Main Square of the Galician town. It seems that the same photographer took also the second photo, which today is known as the oldest . Actually it was enough to take few steps, turn around the lens of the camera and direct it in the opposite direction in order to photograph the northern-west side of the Main Square. Just as in the previous photo, the foreground is filled by the irregular paving texture. Somewhere in the centre of the photo, we can see the block of St. Katarzyna Church with its baroque bell-tower. This is one of few photos on which, there is pictured the view of the Main Square with one-storeyed buildings that were traditionally built since 18th century. Soon, the extensive, ridge houses with steeply slanting, massive roofs and characteristic curvedly rounded gates that led to backyards, noticeable on the northern and western frontage of the Main Square, were replaced by some new town houses. In the right corner of the photo, there is the part of the small chapel with the monument of St. John before its renovation that was made in 1904. Three characteristic features of the chapel are to identify, namely: the pedestal flanked with stairs, the regularly hewn sandstone plates and the well-shaped little roof crowned with the turret.