A poetic coincidence

The image that made me believe

Everything was exactly as it should be. The camera on the tripod, the frame set, the sun already gone. The tavern lights had come on and the white houses of the village were glowing in the fading light of dusk. The sea was completely still. The wind that had been giving me a hard time all day had stopped.

It was, objectively, the calmest moment of the day.

I, on the other hand, was quite the opposite. Restless, worried, anxious.

Naoussa, Paros, 23/5/2009

I was standing in the middle of this serenity, wondering why I thought this was a good idea in the first place. After nine years working almost exclusively within the four walls of my studio in Athens, I made the highly controversial decision to go after a job in a travel magazine. One of the biggest in Greece.

I was fed up with the studio and the city. I wanted a way out. That much was clear. What was less clear was why I thought I could just walk into a completely different kind of photography and be fine.

Arrogance? Overconfidence? Whatever it was, it collapsed when I found myself on an island in the Aegean Sea, responsible for an entire issue on my own. Pretending I knew exactly what I was doing, while I was almost paralysed by impostor syndrome I had never felt before.

I had a strong portfolio and experience for the commercial part of the magazine, but the travel part was just something I had put together based on vacation shots. It was enough to fake it during the interview, but I never expected such a big assignment on my first job.

What about “let’s try the new photographer with something small and easy”? Or “let’s send him along with someone more experienced”? Or anything like that.

Parikia, paros, 18/5/2009

Antiparos, 20/5/2009

Since I bought my first SLR at sixteen, all I had been hearing was how good I was. At photography school, the same. And in every job I had done until then, I had never really failed.

But this time I was seriously doubting myself. I couldn’t enjoy a single minute of what should have been a dream job.

And that’s how I found myself in this beautiful location, doubting my life choices and my supposed photographic brilliance.

This one was chosen for the cover of the magazine.

As I was thinking all this and the light was fading, I kept pressing the shutter every minute or so.

And suddenly there it was.

As I looked at the tiny screen of my camera, I felt it immediately. It’s not about the photograph itself. I can’t really tell anymore if it’s good or not. It’s about what it meant for me. It was the image that made me believe I could continue without constantly thinking I was doing everything wrong.

Of course, there was still a lot to learn. A lot to improve. A lot to rethink.

But it was enough.

It’s been many years since then, and I still remember that moment clearly. The thrill, the excitement, the joy that this simple shot gave me.

The rest followed. And in the end, it worked out just fine.

Fifty months later, after thirty-nine assignments across seventy destinations all over Greece, the last job brought me back to the same island where it all started.

If that’s not a poetic coincidence, I don’t know what is.

Parikia, Paros, 16/7/2013