Spirits of Place
Church of the Seven Martyrs | Sifnos
It’s a beautiful fall morning as I write this, back here in Toronto - crisp as an apple, and barely a week since we returned home from our trip to Athens and the Greek islands. Though I have to admit that the light as I look out and upward from our front porch is not quite as bright, the air nowhere near as warm, the colours so much less pure and intense than that of the Cyclades that they seem, well, faded and autumnal.
It’s that time of year, after all, though the fall colours have yet to paint the trees with their Joseph’s coat-of-many-colours.
It’s the colours, more than anything else, that surprised us, sailing from Piraeus on the fast ferry to Sifnos - Homer’s wine-dark, indigo sea, fringed with turquoise, blues and aquamarines so clear and crystalline that the colours seemed pumped-up, Photoshopped for some travel shoot for Conde Nast Travel magazine or the New York Times (you should read the articles! just click on the highlighted links) - not so much real as hyper-real.
If I’d had any doubt, before we left Toronto, as to whether I would be processing my photographs in colour or in black-and-white, the colours seemed in those first moments on Sifnos to settle the debate - the sky-blue domes of the whitewashed churches, the splashes of colour in the narrow alleys, the deeper arc of the sky, and the dry, harsh landscape, daubed in the khakis, browns and olive greens of South Africa’s arid Karoo, except lapped by the Aegean.
Greece, it seemed in that first encounter, was painted in the colours of the sky and the sea, and my photographs of the islands, it seemed to follow, must be - could only be - in colour, too.
And so we went about our explorations, with our friends from Germany, Lisa and Klaus - a daily swim, each day in some new, brilliant bay, lunch at some taverna just inches from the water - octopus, fried fish, dips of various kinds, Greek salads of course - and evenings of wine and sunsets. All blissfully relaxed, simple, and beautiful.
Slowly, as the days passed and blended together a spirit of place began to emerge, a sense of the forms, shapes, landscapes, habitations - a feeling of timelessness, even, amidst the heat and light of the present, and with this some intuition and perception of the islands, and what it meant and felt like being there, began to emerge too - not just in the obvious brilliance of colour, but in the subtler, more evocative and poetic tones of black-and-white.
These are some of the results (as always, click to enlarge).
I took two cameras with me - three, if you count my iPhone - the Leica Q2, for its higher resolution and magnificent image quality, the Leica Digilux 8, for its portability and zoom lens (the Q2 has a fixed 28mm lens) and the phone, for those on-the-go holiday snaps and Instagram and Facebook moments.
I am almost (but not quite) done with my first selection and edit of the Q2 images - or at least, my photographs of Sifnos and Serifos. After this, I will tackle Athens and the Acropolis. And then, after I have finished sorting and processing the Q2 photographs, I will turn my attention to the Digilux files.
And after that there are also all these iPhone shots to go through, including the photos that Lisa and Klaus and Rob have shared.
All of which poses the rather interesting question - what to do with all of this material?!
Well, some of these images will find their way into one or more portfolios on my website, and to Instagram and Facebook (a narrative in photographs that is already in process). Some will likely also find their way, in due course, into competitions and exhibitions, here and elsewhere.
But - and here’s the thing - even before we boarded the aircraft for Athens, what my heart was set on, what I really wanted to craft and create, was a serious photobook, along with a record of our travels, for ourselves and our friends.
So then, what you see, in this blog post, is a taste of what’s to come - a few sketches, examples, of the possible contents of at least two different products - if not perhaps three.
You may have guessed what they are.
First, a collection of memories - pictures from a holiday - a photo-magazine of snaps and images to share with Lisa and Klaus, family and friends. This is where we were, this is what we did, this is what fun we all had.
Next, a photo-book project, the character and scope of which is still turning in my mind and will continue to evolve as I work through the images, think through what they mean and how I feel about them, aesthetically, emotionally, photographically and, ultimately, go with my gut.
A hard-cover book of colour photographs, for sure, probably large format; but - and here I will have to see where the images lead - possibly a separate volume also, dedicated to black-and-white - possibly a smaller format, too, something more intimate, to hold in your hand, and examine up close.
So - I hope you enjoy this little foretaste (and if you do enjoy the photographs, do let me know) and look out for my next blog post for an update.
Dawn, Ganema | Serifos