The photograph Marija Pečolar is happy to have a visitor was created during the famous photographer’s final journey, when she travelled to the places of her childhood and of her ancestors as part of the project Border Spaces. Through the camera’s eye, she documented the stories of people she met, but because she was looking at her family’s past and the places they had lived in, she was not interested in traces of progress or the images of life in contemporary society. Instead, the focus of her camera was directed towards scenes that reflected the remains of the old, traditional culture, either in buildings, people or customs. Among the photographs that she shot in Slovenj Gradec and its surrounding areas, those that stand out are the scenes of peasants lives in the castle Gradišče, whose image and inhabitants still reflect life in times past even at the start of the 21^st century. With her photographic lens, she caught the lively and sparkling look of a bedridden old lady, expressing sincere joy at the unexpected visit. The tiny figure’s energy is what draws all the attention, despite the numerous attributes of various past periods that had left their mark on the room. It is simultaneously an image representing the transience of time and the life energy that defies the imminence of death.