THESSALONIKI 2020 - THE PHOTOGRAPHIC JOURNEY

A PERSONAL VISUAL ITINERARY

Here is the first selection of images from my recent journey to the city of Thessaloniki, Greece in March 2020. The BW images are shot on film with panoramic medium format camera the DAYI617 and a Rodenstock 90mm lens  ... 

Everything starts with an idea. I had one: Traveling back to Thessaloniki ... The first conception of the idea lies back in time, by Autumn 2017 ( see Blog Entry: THESSALONIKI 2019 ) ... I have done some general readings about the ancient and more recent history of the city. Back in the 80s, I spend the first years of my youth in this city. At that time I had completely different goals, but some fundamental attitudes in my life were remarkably very similar. Especially the will to be creative and the inclination to compose/compile some complex mental depictions of my environment ... 

But unfortunately at the beginning of this travel, I didn't manage to develop a concrete action plan. I decided to take with me three cameras, a 6x17 analog panoramic camera, a 35mm analog camera and a digital camera with the ability to capture HD Video ... Roughly I wanted to create sketches of the  city with a hybrid method, analog images and digital video sequences ... Photography is a kind of securing evidence at a crime scene ( Spurensicherung ). 

The Heptapyrgion is a Byzantine and Ottoman-era fortress situated on the north-eastern corner of the Acropolis of Thessaloniki in Greece.

A short Art Documentary Film

THESSALONIKI 2020 - A PERSONAL VISUAL ITINERARY.

6x17 Analog Panoramas

All panoramic images are shot with a 6x17 DAYI SII 617 analog camera on Kodak TriX-400 film. 

The 6x17 DAYI IIS 617 analog panoramic camera

35mm Analog Images

All analog 35mm images are shot with a Voigtländer Vitessa L camera and an Septon 50mm f2 lens. 

Heptapyrgion Thessaloniki ( Voigtländer Vitessa L )

Cutting film for the Voigtländer Vitessa L with the excellent Septon f2 50mm lens. 

Planning, Preparation and Postprocessing ... 

Planning, Preparation and Postprocessing are very important components/phases of the creative process. Further the arrangement and the concatenation of the images in the post process is what determines and reveals the story of the photographic project ... Still a lot of work to be done for the completion of my THESSALONI-PROJECT ... 

Preparing the film rolls for developing ... 

Various Digital Scenes ... 

Various scenes and urbanscapes from the city of Thessaloniki. All shot with a Nikon D5600 camera body  and a SIGMA ART f1.8 16-35mm DC HSM lens. I shot the images in color mode in order to make the differences to the analog pictures most explicit. 

I am still working actively on the collection of images from Thessaloniki during the last 3 years ... eventually, I hope to compile the images in a kind of visual narrative in the form a photobook or a short film. But it is still a lot to be done ...