Blue Door, Santorini
In mid September 2011 I took my wife on an early vacation to celebrate her **th birthday. The destination was the eastern Mediterranean (or parts of it) aboard a small cruise liner. Selfishly, I knew this would also be a great opportunity for me to have a lot of fun with photography. Armed with my (by now) trusty Panasonic GF2 camera, tripod and accessories as well as my even trustier old Bronica SQB I took about 800 photographs digitally and a further 20 rolls of FP4-Plus black and white film – over 1000 photographs in total. Since I believe in quality not quantity, the post shooting edit was fairly ruthless but I still got a lot of good images even though many of them were very ‘postcardy’ (well, it was the Mediterranean after all). From the culled set of images I have now produced my 6th self published book through Blurb titled “Odyssey”. The book's title - Odyssey - seems appropriate in light of the historical connection to ancient Greek mythology and to the epic, almost Homeric nature of our journey.
We started our vacation in Venice (well Boston actually but that is a different story). Venice was meant to be our pre-trip acclimatization and it certainly proved to be that. After two daunting days fighting throngs of tourist groups and trying to see everything that Venice and its satellite islands have to offer we departed with a surprised sense of relief. I was most pleased with a few night shots taken near the end of our stay, especially the ones showing a local lightning storm set against the movement of cruise liners at midnight.
St Marks Square and Basilica at night, Venice
Cruise Liner leaving Venice during lightning storm
Our sea journey commenced with a nighttime traverse of the Adriatic Sea to the microscopic mooring of Triluke Bay, a perfect and unassuming hideaway for those running from the law. Our next stop at majestic Dubrovnik proved to be one of the highlights of the trip. The enclosing mediaeval walls surround the old town and can be walked, assuming one gets the chance and is familiar with closing times (which we were not, sad to say). Kotor in mountainous Montenegro was eerily similar to Dubrovnik on a slightly smaller scale but impressive nonetheless for its imposing castle, defensive walls and mountainous scenery. Both Dubrovnik and Kotor formerly boasted strong trading links with Venice but were strikingly different in architecture and atmosphere.
St Nicholas’s Church, Kotor, Montenegro
A tourist (no relation) gazing out beyond the walled city of Dubrovnik
And so to Greece. This was a coming home for both my wife and myself. We had both visited parts of Greece (and Turkey) in the 1970's and we were interested in what, if any changes could be seen. We visited at a time of great economic upheaval (an unsustainable debt load and turmoil in the EC) and predated the stepping down of Prime Minister George Papandreou by only one month. However, to us, the country seemed like it always had been, perhaps a little more time worn if such a thing is possible. It was still charming although overpopulated with tourists and all the paraphernalia that erupts to cater to tourism. Perhaps Greece is another example of the world becoming smaller and offering less uniqueness. Athens was, of course, crowded and dirty, and its jewels were surrounded and supported in their infirmity by cages of scaffolding. My most pleasant surprise was Milos. I was treated to a period of comparative solitude on a surprisingly beautiful island. Sarakinikos white sand /rock beach is the most photographed place in the Aegean and I can understand why.
Sarakinikos, Milos
Santorini (see first photograph) and Mykonos both justify their popularity by presenting the traveler with picture postcard views (if one is inclined to record those). For the keen photographer there is a certain bloody-mindedness about being able to capture a postcard quality image at short notice - how much better could we be if we could spend more time in each place!
Turkey remains that meeting place between east and west despite newly forged connections with the European Economic Community. The country presents a riot of color and a seething mass of humanity (not to mention some of the most congested roads imaginable in Istanbul). Our visit to Ephesus proved to me how imagination and memory could become twisted into knots of inaccuracy. I hardly remembered the core of this sprawling antiquity but fine details from my last visit 35 years ago came sharply into focus. A new and fascinating addition to the site stood incongruous in its modernity - an costly protective shell for the houses of the once wealthy that were discovered dotted across a hillside close to the main avenue of this once imperious city.
Our post cruise stop in Istanbul proved educational although not as relaxing as we had planned. There is simply too much to see in such a short time. Istanbul is a mecca for those 'mosqueites' among us, there being over 2000 of them in the city, all emitting recorded wailing to alert and encourage the populace to prayer. The largest of them are truly monumental structures of great power and influence. Their interiors are testaments to the adoration poured on their symbolism by craftsmen of consummate skill.
The Sultan Ahmed (Blue) Mosque
The book is not meant to present a history of the areas we visited. I have tried to include some interesting observations along the way - observations that may shed a different light on the fascinating countries that are to be found surrounding the eastern Mediterranean Sea. However, to keep this book firmly on the "our holiday" footing, I have included a picture of one or both of us in each of the locations we visited. Mostly we can be seen eating or drinking and you are free to draw your own conclusions about that.
Only digital color images were included in the book. A collection of black and white film based images will soon be available in a sister book titled "Images from the Mediterranean". A further follow up book that incorporates black and white images from our journey has almost been completed. This third book will present several short portfolios of black and white images. It will be titled "A Series of Series"
Have a wonderful holiday season and, as always, have fun with your photography. Thanks for reading this.
