THESSALONIKI 2019 - THE PHOTOGRAPHIC JOURNEY

Here is a first selection of images from my recent journey to the city of Thessaloniki, Greece on March 2019. The BW images are shot on film with a NIKON FM2 and Nikkor f1.2 50mm, f3.5 28mm PC lenses.

Everything starts with an idea. I had one: Traveling back to Thessaloniki ... The first conception of the idea it lies back in time, by Autumn 2017 ( sea Blog Entry:  THESSALONIKI 2017 ) ...

But having an idea is not everything, one has to lay out some plans at least, do some research, develop a concept ... but the topic/subject it is not easy at all, it it rather multidimensional and complex ... Thessaloniki is a kind of "Crossing Point" ( Kreuzpunkt ) for the history and culture of Europe, Greece and for my personal life ... here are some Keywords:  Aristoteles, Alexander the Great, Apostel Paulus, Gaius Galerius Valerius Maximianus Augustus, Byzance, Ottoman Empire, Balkan Wars, Macedonia, Greek Crisis etc.  ... a long list to work through ...

The majority of Thessaloniki was largely destroyed in the Great Fire of 1917. The Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos forbade the reconstruction of the city center until a modern city plan was approved. He commissioned Ernest Hébrard for the work, which the architect conceived and developed with the aid of the Greek architects Aristotelis Zachos and Konstantinos Kitsikis.[1] The plan did away with the medieval and Oriental (Ottoman) features of Thessaloniki, preserved its Byzantine heritage, and transformed it into a city with boulevards and contemporary roadways, squares and parks. Hébrard taught at the National Technical University of Athens, and his work is well known in the architecture schools of Greece.

THE WALLS OF THESSALONIKI

The Walls of Thessaloniki ( Greek: Τείχη της Θεσσαλονίκης ) are the city walls surrounding the city of Thessaloniki during the Middle Ages and until the late 19th century, when large parts of the walls, including the entire seaward section, were demolished as part of the Ottoman authorities' restructuring of Thessaloniki's urban fabric. The city was fortified from its establishment in the late 4th century BC, but the present walls date from the early Byzantine period, ca. 390, and incorporate parts of an earlier, late 3rd-century wall. The walls consist of the typical late Roman mixed construction of ashlar masonry alternating with bands of brick. The northern part of the walls adjoins the acropolis of the city, which formed a separate fortified enceinte, and within it lies another citadel, the Heptapyrgion (Seven Towers), popularly known by the Ottoman translation of the name, Yedi Kule.

THE UNBELIEVABLE RUINS - MY TRAVEL TO THESSALONIKI 2019

Burnt Norton

I

Time present and time past

Are both perhaps present in time future

And time future contained in time past.

If all time is eternally present

All time is unredeemable.

What might have been is an abstraction

Remaining a perpetual possibility

Only in a world of speculation.

What might have been and what has been

Point to one end, which is always present.

Footfalls echo in the memory

Down the passage which we did not take

Towards the door we never opened

Into the rose-garden. My words echo

Thus, in your mind.

                                   But to what purpose

Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves

I do not know. 

                                     T. S. Eliot "The Four Quartets"

I have compiled the analog images in a kind of motion images using Davinci Resolve and composing a short musical track.

I have written the music track by my self using an ARTURIA minilab, a persian Tombak and cymbals ... all recorded with an M-AUDIO Fast Track C400 in REAPER.

Image rendering in DaVinci RESOLVE 15 Beta. You can view this film on my youtube channel:

A SHORT EXCURSION TO CHALKIDIKI

AGIA TRIADA 

We spend the last night in this small beautiful village near the city.  The last impressions, the last thoughts and the last pictures of the journey  ... but for sure I would come back to this city ... I have to ... to follow the thread of my life ... the thread of my art ...

Agia Triada ( Thessaloniki ), Urbanscapes