In the dungeon and other thoughts...

I am spending hours in front of the screen editing and hours in the dark where like a mad man I am trying to master the negative and give the photograph a life of its own, the way I have perceived it. It is time consuming but unlike the digital it has a sensual way of feeling the material. You have learned how it responds, what it takes to make it your own. It still fascinates me. Struggling with time. I wish the day was 48 hours and we lived two lives but then I know that I have to do with what we have.

Work, and for what I am speaking about, dreams. Hard to compromise, and hard to fit them in one pocket. In the morning running to deliver and do "lifestyle" sort of reportage, and in the nights living in another world. I am torn... But there is a goal, a target. I should not be complaining. But then complaining about the right sort of things makes our world moving and better?
I am never satisfied and always want more of life myself and everything.

Back to the rainy road again. Its getting colder here, I hope it snows. I want to go back north.... Delivering pics, work and meeting with loving friends in the eve before I close myself again to the lovely dungeons as I like to call it.

"You will fall in love again. Love is a recurring thing, mate" he old him as he was about to turn his back to him. "No, Love comes only once and it won't happen to me again." He left with tears in his eyes, while her body lay on the naked dark wooden floorboard of the living room.
There is a river that flows underneath our skin with myriads of ofshoots, a mystic river that carries away our senses and feelings in dark corners of our body, and defines our selfs. I don't think there is anything you can do to avoid the stream of life. We are being taught how to die but we do not know how to live. To make the most of it.
Darkness and light the two oposite poles in which life vibrates.
I remember from somewhere "Our bodies that interwine with each other is the world. Not the one made by maps".

Return from the ashes

I am back to the dungeon and to the light table trying to decide on the photographs that tell the story.
I have been photographing all week the lives of the people of Ptolemaida, the Coal people as I like to call them,
as their lives are interwined with the mines that surround them. Ptolemaida is a huge area with mines and Power stations that produce almost 60% of the electricity in Greece. It is a haevilly polluted area, and when it is sunny or windy my God you don't want to be around.
Your eyes hurt and tears are coming out. Your lungs feel heavy and you hear the wistle on your chest as the air tries to get down your lungs. Mud, and dust are everywhere and the black dust of the mines covers everything for kilometers away.
But that there is something I love about the area and its people. On one it's the mines with their monumental size that you feel so small and looking at the open cast mines you can feel the wounds on the Earth. It hurts you as if it is your own body that somedy has attack you and scrathed your skin and down more to the bone. And on the other it is a space that i would rather be on my own there. It is almost surreal to think that for miles away there is no unscathed earth and your eye can rest heavilly on the depth of the earth.
I drive for days on through a desolate landscape meeting people that despite their condition they have remained human to the bone. I am wondering what is it that makes them stay and live and grow their children in such a god forsaken place?
I am trying to find out for all the aesthetics and I am all in for it, but I still cannot comprehend how necessity has brought these people to endure this.
I will go back. It is not enough.

Black Dust

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John G. Morris

Hangover in early morning Plaka, on assignment to photograph The very much Mr. Morris. My head is about to burst. I wait in lounge during the interview and wonder how I am going to bring myself to photograph this historical figure in photography. He has been around and has rubbed shoulders with most of the finest photographers of our time. He knows his stuff. My knees are about to give up, and my hands are shaking. Too much coffee to keep me going and the stress! I hate these moments of insecurity. I listen to him telling stories about Magnum, and Life and I am trying to see him through. I observe. But as always I dont know what I want. Hopefully I think to myself the opportune picture will present itself. He is kind and agrees to walk with me to find the picture. I am grateful.