I remember my mother,
persistently trying to take a picture of me with a Minolta camera, and me,
desperately trying to avoid it by closing my eyes, not being able to bare the
Mediterranean sunlight.
I can’t stand it now either, even when it’s
cloudy. I remember, while the cameras'
film was reaching its end and the attempt to take a picture of me was a
certified failure, the sudden, swift slap on my cheek.
I think, that, was the decisive
moment.
The baptism by fire. Maybe that was what made me a photographer.
A slap. Hard or soft, who cares?!
So, here we are, today after a year of the pandemic, and I wonder what the connection between these pictures is…
Honesty.
Small photographic
bits from trips, trails, people, indifferent landscapes, everything I love
mixed together with chemical spoiling, grains, signs and scratches. The signs became part of the story-telling.
A
canvas of semantic references filled with imperfections but also with all these
little and stupid things that give a meaning to our lives.
A nostalgic
certificate of a more tender period, an invisible familiarity.
None of these
photographs have been edited and that was a fully conscious decision. In an era
of hysteria where everybody tries to reach perfection even if they will never
reach it, in an era where a pandemic has pulled the rug from under our feet and
makes us face a loud silence, a void, the lack of perfection is what makes us
humane.
In an upcoming era where algorithms rule, film photography reminds me that beauty hides somewhere else, far away from chasing perfection…
© Translation by: Anastasia Chormova
" while photographs may not lie, liars may photograph "Lewis Hine
Arkitsa Fthiotidos, Greece
35200
© 2023 sofia dalamagka