03-June-1995: Phographer in Park Cismijiu, Bucharest, Romania.

I made these photos of this old photographer 3 June of 1995 in park Cismijiu in Bucharest. These photos where shot using Azomures Romanian black & white film, and this is why they have so strong black & white contrast. That period I was using Azomures films because they were cheap and available in Romania.

Lets see how the camera of this photographer works: In this camera there is no film and the photographer uses photographic paper instead of film. In this camera there isn't shutter release mechanism! The photographer empirically open/close the cap of the lens for some seconds during the shooting of the photo. Then he develops the photographic paper and his result you can see in the following negative image/photo.

If he wants to correct some part of the photo he uses a correction colour. Here with the red colour he corrected a portrait (this portrait is mine). The equivalent traditional dark room technique is the masking technique during exposure of the image on the photographic paper with the enlarger and the equivalent techniques in the digital dark room (=image processing software, photoshop, gimp) are the Adjustment layers masks.

Afterwards he shoots a photograph of the corrected image as we can see. And the photo of an negative image is a positive (and the final image) that you can see it in the next photograph.

Homework: Take the negative image of the photographer and using a program of image processing created the above photograph (positive image).

Solution: After opening the negative image in Photoshop we apply: a) Image -> Rotate Canvas -> Flip Canvas Horizontal, b) Image -> Adjustments -> Invert, c) Image -> Mode -> Greyscale και d) Image -> Adjustments -> Levels (we darken the image a little bit). The result of the photoshop is in the following photograph:

7-Aug-1996: Park in Bucharest, Romania.

1-May-2007: Chiliadou beach, Evia island, Greece.

Yesterday 1-May-2007 I was in the Chilidou beach in Evia. This beach is around 160Kms far away from Athens.

The photos above are from the nudist beach of Chiliadou. Chiliadou beach is an ideal place for free camping. The best time of the year to visit this beach is Spring and early in Summer because in the summer the beach is overcrowded.

The above beach is an isolated beach that you can reach by feet, following the steep trekking path from the nudist beach (look the red path on the photo).

In the beginning of the beach there is a place grown with planes. Many campers are camping in this area during the summer time.

The above old bus is used as a caravan ;-). 10-15 years ago in Chiliadou beach you could only find campers, a few caravans and some restaurants! Nowadays you can find many hotels, rooms to let, restaurants and even a night club ;).

Aug-2002: Dimitris - Samothrace.

7-Jan-2001: A postcard from Prague.

31-Mar-2007: Chara in Exarchia, Athens, Greece.

Recently (31-March-2007) I was with two friends (Chara & Yiannis) in Exarchia/Athens. I shot one b&w film my friends and in this post you see two selected pictures from Chara. The first photo was shot against light but with some masking in photoshop you see that the result is fine. In the next photo I like the composition with Chara in the middle between the "flush toilet" and the posters of anarchists.

Update 9-May-2007: The shop behind Chara in the second photograph is the shop "Koukoutsi" which sells interesting t-shirts from all around the world.

Jan-2007: London.

In the end of January and beginning of February 2007 I was travelling in Sheffield, London (UK), Lyon and Paris (France). I have shot 2-3 black & white films but when I come back in Athens I found that the shutter release mechanism of my camera was broken and only few pictures has been developed.

These are two interesting pictures that I shot in London (most of my photographs failed because of my broken camera). In the first picture is there is a view from my room in the Hotel which I stayed in London (Arran House Hotel) and the second one is from the city tour. I visited London for a first time and for a short time (for 1 day).

12-Oct-2005: Balkanatolia "Bir" - Demo CD.

This is the Demo CD "Bir" from the music group Balkanatolia that we saw in the previous post. This photo was taken in summer 2001 while traveling from Athens to Paros island.

15-May-2006: Balkanatolia music group, Train Station of Komotini, Rodopi, Greece.

These photos are from the music group "Balkanatolia" from the city Komotini, Rodopi, Greece. These photographs of the group has been shot in the train station of Komotini on May 2006. The music group is consisting of Greek and Turkish musicians (multi-ethnic balkan group) and Balkanatolia's music is "ethnic" music from Turkey and Greece. The heart of the group is my friend Halil Mustafa (the last photo is a portrait of him).

Aug-2006: Turkish-Greek borders in Bozcaada / Tenedos island, Turkey.

All these pictures are from the Turkish island Bozcaada/Tenedos. They are from the west part of the island to the side of the Turkish-Greek borders. You can see from the google-earth map the exact location of the place on the map. In the sun-set many people are visiting this place to enjoy the sunset. The whole landscape is interesting: the sunken ship, the ruined light-house and the electrical wind-mill generators.

Summer-2006: Dina - Marmaritsa beach / Chionorema, Rodopi, Greece.

The photograph of Dina in the first 2 pictures is from the beach of Marmaritsa in Rodopi (this beach is one of the best beaches in Rodopi). In the first picture in the background we can note the island of Samothrace. The last picture is from the climbing path "Chionorema" inside the mountains of Rodopi.

Some of the previous photographs are from the beach of Marmaritsa. Here I publish two colour photos of Marmaritsa beach. This beach is ideal for free camping!

Jan-2003: Gypsy nearby the train rails, FYROM.

This photo is taken on Januray 2003 when I was traveling from Skopje to the Greek/FYRO-Macedonian borders.

27-Jul-1997: River bank of Vistula river in Krakow, Poland.

This photograph is taken at the river bank of the river Vistula in Poland. Generally speaking, if you are planning to travel in Poland I suggest visiting the cities: Krakow (south) and Gdansk (north).

March 2007: face2faceproject.com

FACE2FACE: An interesting photographic project by French photographer JR and African Marco. The following text is from the project web site:

When we met in 2005, we decided to go together in the Middle-East to figure out why Palestinians and Israelis couldn't find a way to get along together. We then traveled across the Israeli and Palestinian cities without speaking much. Just looking to this world with amazement. This holly place for Judaism, Christianity and Islam. This tiny area where you can see mountains, sea, deserts and lakes, love and hate, hope and despair embedded together.

After a week, we had a conclusion with the same words: these people look the same; they speak almost the same language, like twin brothers raised in different families. A religious covered woman has her twin sister on the other side. A farmer, a taxi driver, a teacher, has his twin brother in front of him. And he his endlessly fighting with him. It's obvious, but they don't see that. We must put them face to face. They will realize. We want that, at last, everyone laughs and thinks when he sees the portrait of the other and his own portrait.
The Face2Face project is to make portraits of Palestinians and Israelis doing the same job and to post them face to face, in huge formats, in unavoidable places, on the Israeli and the Palestinian sides.
In a very sensitive context, we need to be clear. We are in favor of a solution for which two countries, Israel and Palestine would live peacefully within safe and internationally recognized borders.
All the bilateral peace projects (Clinton/Taba, Ayalon/Nussibeh, Geneva Accords) are converging in the same direction. We can be optimistic. We hope that this project will contribute to a better understanding between Israelis and Palestinians.

29-Jan-2005: Ano Birsini, Rodopi mountains, Greek-Bulgarian borders.

These photos are from the Greek/Muslim village Ano Birsini on the Greek-Bulgarian borders. The first photo is taken on the courtyard of the mosque.

25-Mar-2005: Greek Mufti of Komotini.

Meco Cemali is the religious Muslim leader (Mufti) of Komotini, Greece. This photo is from the center of Komotini during the celebration of the Greek national day on 25-March-2005.

29-Jan-2005: Portraits, Rodopi mountains, Greek-Bulgarian borders.

Following the previous post I am continuing publishing some portraits from Mirtiski village.