The essence of Greece, in black and white
American photographer William Abranowicz has captured the essence of Greece in his book «The Greek File: Images from a Mythic Land.» He spoke to Kathimerini about his experience of Greece and his work. How did you develop a relationship with the Greek world? I first visited Greece in 1986 with an ex-girlfriend whose brother-in-law was Greek. We went to Myconos. To make a long story short, she fell in love (in the Myconos sort of way) with a bartender we met and I spent the time painfully learning to be alone. I had just had a marriage fall apart and this rebound relationship just put me back in the same place I was in my marriage. The breakup, in the end, was the best thing to ever happen to me. Greece is a wonderful place to be alone. Solitude now means so much more to me. When I met the woman I am now married to (and have a family of three children with – Zander, Simon and Max Athena), we both decided to go back to the Aegean – she had been there as well years before – to rediscover it and reclaim it for ourselves. We went to Myconos and Santorini, and made great friends with some people at a hotel called Perivolas in Oia. I took a photograph of the bed we stayed in at this wonderful place. It became a poster – which I forwarded to our new acquaintances, and was asked to come back to make some photographs of the place for them. We went back and have continued to do so every year since. My book is dedicated in part to Nadia Psychas, our Santorini friend – my Greek mother – and her son, my best friend, Costis. He is my son’s godfather. We are very, very close. Did it take you long to grasp the bare truth of life on the islands? It must have been so different from what people generally have in mind. The bare truth is a good way to put it. So many writers have spoken of it along those lines. My grasp of the place came to me by the end of my very first trip, the painful one; I had never gotten so into myself as I did at that time, in that place. I am grateful that I was with Greeks on that trip as well. Greeks have a compassion that is different from what Americans seem to know. Emotions, feelings, real thoughts and the heart all matter in a different way. I was certainly blown away by the sheer beauty of the place I was in, but what I found even more remarkable was how everything seemed to be stripped to its essence in Greece. Maybe it is the light, the history, people, geography, physics, who knows? I have collected so many beautiful passages by as many writers on what this bare truth is. I found the passage from Henry Miller that I use in the book (from Miller’s work «The Colossus of Maroussi») to best exemplify it. I loved the way you treat light, objects, facial expressions, skin, water and architecture: nothing to do with stereotyped images of the islands. I had the feeling that you were searching beneath the surface. Is this why you chose not to use color? Well, Greece (and the rest of the world for that matter) probably could do without Greek color for a while. We all know it. There is little to be learned from it and through it, and I had always worked in black-and-white. I love the fine craft of it. I love the way that it distills what is being photographed. Such an essential place should be seen in an essential way. The most simple things take on a monumental stance in Greece. A glass of water is no mere glass of water; a cigarette, no mere cigarette. Objects take on new importance. The simplest people spoke of poets, history, life in ways I had never experienced before. The photos represent many years of work; I guess you needed time to let impressions mature before deciding to make the book. I work slowly. I would go for a month or so during the summers; sometimes twice in a year and not go with the intention of shooting for a book. I went to live there, and I photographed the things in front of me. The beds we slept in, and the rooms we sat and lay in, the food we ate. We went to places for ourselves, not because there were some good photographs to be made at them, as I explained earlier. The idea for a book came much later. I had worked for a photographer named George Tice, who is not only a master craftsman but a wonderful, disciplined photographer. As with many other apprentice/mentor relationships, my work followed his. My work looked like his and he told me I had to find a place to make my own, to lay some claim to. Well, I do not really feel comfortable laying a claim to Greece, but for my work, I made it mine. I marveled at the printmaking of the photos that reveals your experience in this part of the photography procedure. Do you always print your own photos? I do always print my own work. The craft of photography is of prime and critical importance to me. On a visit to Hawaii a number of years ago I learned about the Hawaiian discipline called kineole. Its basics are something like if you are going to build a canoe, build the best one that could possibly be built. Can you describe how it feels when you first go to a place in order to take photos? How do you relate to landscape/people? I’ve been very lucky through my association with a number of magazines, but with the Conde Nast Traveler in particular, to have gone to many, many places. When I first get to a place, I usually do not get it. I wonder why I’m there and what in the world the writer and magazine were thinking when they sent me. I go to sleep, wake up with camera next to me and let rip. The best places don’t reveal themselves to you right away. The last days of trips are usually the best. I’ve settled, I’ve come to understand the place a little more (and got over any jet lag), met some people and driven to and tried to see as many things as I can. I do not meet people easily. I am not a brilliant conversationalist – might even see myself as boring sometimes, but I trust that if I look hard and long enough, I will meet the people I need to meet. Pragmatically, I generally depend on someone, say at a hotel or restaurant, to get me nearer to people that I might want to photograph. There are certainly times where I have heard stories about people in advance of my getting to a place and I search them out when I arrive. As far as relating to photographing landscapes or people, I would get bored if I did just one thing. Sometimes, most of the time, the silence is what I look for, but there are certainly times when I want a big bang of energy. I understand that this is your first book after many years of photography. Why? Once I started to call it a book, the pressure became different. I over-edited and kept thinking it was not ready yet. Then George Tice told me either do it or move on. He offered to look at what I had together. One night at 3 a.m. I got a telephone call in a hotel in Naxos from George, who was very excited, to tell me I had more than enough to do a book. My mentor had given me the sign that it was there. So why did it take so long? Self-doubt and fear of not doing it perfectly. It is not perfect, but I do love it and am very proud of having done it. Do you have an open line with Greece now? Do you have any plans to exhibit these photos in Greece? We have an open line with Greece, mostly with our friends in Athens and Santorini. We are like family. We visit each other for holidays, talk about our lives and our children. I have learned that the psychoanalytically dependent society I live in has come about because, unlike the Greeks, we do not get together often enough and share with each other an understanding that we are going through similar things, and can help each other. In photographic terms, I have for the last few years been getting many assignments to photograph in Greece for US publications. On the exhibition front, the Goulandris Museum just added a print of mine to their collection, but they are the first to do so. We have been trying to contact the Benaki with no success. We have been trying to connect more with Greek museums, galleries, etc., but have had little response. Rizarios Foundation, for example – I love the Boissonas book they did last year. Things take time. I would love to have a show of the work in Greece but it has to be the right venue for the work. I hope it will happen. What are you working on now? I have been photographing my children in a similar way to the way I photograph Greece – I have been making images of all of them since the moments they were born. Kathleen Klech, the photography director of the Conde Nast Traveler, put a bug in my ear last year that I should focus on it. I work every day and travel quite a bit.
