We are delighted to publish the results of our 2012 Calendar Photography Competition. We have been extremely fortunate in that two acclaimed professional photographers, one British and one Greek, and each admired internationally for their work, generously agreed to act as judges, and we would like to thank them both most sincerely for finding the time to do so. Clay Perry, from London, and Yiorgos Depollas, from Athens, have both had their work published in a wide variety of books, but we approached them because both have had books published dedicated to their photographs of Greece.
There was a tremendous response to the competition, and all the entries were of a very high standard. As you will read, Clay Perry commented that having to choose between them was hard. He said, "There were some really good sea shots in the competition, also action shots and observations of nature. It was very difficult to choose the best for the calendar."
So, many thanks to all those who took part. Commiserations to those whose work was not chosen, but console yourselves with the thought that it was a close run event. We hope that all of you, and others, will take part in the 2013 contest. And congratulations to Dionisia Mari and Susie Connibeer, whose photographs were selected as worthy of particular mention by the judges.
Clay Perry lives in London, and for many years has owned a village house on Crete. His work includes portraiture, landscape, botanical studies, and reportage. He has travelled the world taking photographs. He has worked for the Sunday Times magazine, has had his work published in British magazines such as Country Living, the World of Interiors, and in more than 22 books.
He first got his taste for travel as a young man working in the fifties as a deck hand with the British Merchant Navy. He later studied at the Guildford School of Art, and taught at the Ravensbourne School of Art. In the swinging sixties in London he photographed many avant-garde artists including Yoko Ono, and became house photographer for the celebrated Signals Gallery, producing images for the Signals News bulletin that provided a forum for cutting-edge artists, writers and poets.
In the late eighties he was travelling in Crete with his wife Maggie when he happened across a little village above a bay called Milatos, which he later described as a ”small paradise.” He said, "There were two tavernas shaded by tamarisk trees, a periptera (kiosk) that sold sweets and cigarettes and a jetty to the side where a couple of fishing boats were moored. The place had such a simple charm that we were spellbound."
They eventually bought and renovated an old stone house in the village, converting the outside donkey stable to a bathroom. (The house is now on the market with Crete Property Consultants.) He was so moved by the people and customs he discovered there that he set out to travel widely throughout Greece and record a traditional way of life which even then seemed under threat.
The result was Vanishing Greece, published in 1991 by Conran Octopus, which boasts 250 photographs, with an introduction by celebrated travel writer Patrick Leigh Fermor, whose books on Greece include Mani, and Roumeli, and a commentary by journalist and poet Elizabeth Boleman-Herring, who has lived in Greece for many years and written widely about it. Clay Perry’s photographic reportage is a wistful and affectionate chronicle of the country’s people, landscape and rural heritage. One of the seven sections focuses on the Ionian. The book is now out of print, but remains available from some on-line retailers.
Clay Perry has said, “Photography is about a quest for a better image, a search for perfection which is elusive.” He told The Ionian magazine, “I spent several months travelling in Greece taking photographs for my book Vanishing Greece. The work took me all over the country from the Vikos Gorge and the Epirus mountains in the north to the Dodecanese islands and Mount Athos.
“I have very warm memories of Lefkas and the Ionian sea where many of the photographs in the competition were taken. I think for me the best way to judge a photograph is to say to myself, would I have taken that or would I have photographed it in that way.
“In a sense all photography is subjective, but when I come across a photograph that I can say I wish I had taken that, then some significant communication has been made. I feel that of all the photographs in the competition, some of which are very competent, the one that to me has the most depth and atmosphere, is Sunset 2 Agios Nikolas by Deonisia Mari.
“The cloud composition and depth created by the dark foliage in the foreground, and the sun setting over the distant headland have all the elements of the quickly changing weather patterns of Greece, but evoke for me the work of English landscape painter Turner, the master of skies . There were some really good sea shots in the competition, also action shots and observations of nature. It was very difficult to choose the best for the calendar.”
The other books in which Clay Perry’s work has featured include English Cottage Gardens, Traditional English Gardens, Old English Villages, Creating a Cottage Garden, and David Austin’s English Roses. He has a new book coming out in the spring, called Heritage Fruit and Vegetables, to be published by Thames and Hudson in conjunction with the Royal Horticultural Society.
One of his most recent projects has been to photograph some of the tribes of Morocco when they gathered at the University of Marrakesh for a folklore festival. He is now working on a book about the culture of Morocco, for which he is looking for a publisher. It is a country which he says still “retains many of the traditional ways of life that have disappeared elsewhere.”
Dionisia Mari is 17 years old and a keen amateur photographer. She lives in the village of Agios Nikolaos near Aktio. She took part in a photographic competition in school last year and was placed in the top five finalists. Dionisia is in her last year of high school and plans to go to university to study economics next year. Her parents run a taverna where she helps out in the summer. She said, "I used a regular Sony digital camera the day I took the photo. We were walking with a friend and I saw the sunset. I thought it was beautiful. I ran back to the house to get the camera."
Yiorgos Depollas, who is based in Athens, was a leading figure in the New Greek Photography movement which pioneered creative photographic images in his native country in the 1980s and 1990s. He remains a huge influence at home and abroad, has exhibited throughout Europe and in the USA, and has had his work published in many books.He was born in Athens in 1947, and as a young man studied film at the Stavrakos School of Cinematography, the oldest such school in Greece, which has fostered three generations of artists and technicians and has an international reputation.
In 1975 he founded the Image Studio, which promotes travel and advertising photography, and in 1979 was one of the five co-founders of the Photography Centre of Athens with which he remained involved for more than 25 years. It was the first Greek institution devoted to creative photography, and remains a seminal focus for young photographers today.
In 1981 he was the Secretary General of the Greek Union of Commercial and Creative Photography. Two years later he co-founded Editions FOTORAMA, and since 1984 has taught photography at the Vakalo school of graphic arts.
Nine years ago he launched fotoview, an image bank dedicated to travel photography. His work has appeared in countless exhibitions in Greece and France, in Cambridge in the UK, and in Italy, Germany, the USA and China. In 1984 he won the Air France Prix Photo award, in 1995 he shared the award for the best exhibition at the 9th Foto Synkyria event in Thessalonika, and in 2003 his book On the Beach won the Mylos award for the best Greek photography book of the year.
Among the other books in which his work has appeared are Yiorgos Depollas photographs 1975 - 1995, 13 Strange Deaths, InLook, and Asylum. His travel books include Aegean Voyage: The Light and the Smile, rated by some as one of the best ever photographic essays on Greece, A Greek Journey, Return to Arcadia, Greece - wandering through time, and Icaria.
The photograph in our competition which he singled out for particular mention was Lefkas Lagoon. He said, “I found this picture particularly interesting because of the interplay of light and colours, and the atmosphere which they create.”
Susie Connibeer, who is in her fifties, sailed with a friend from Fowey, Cornwall, UK in May 2009 on the friend's yacht Wildbird, and headed down the western coasts of France, Portugal and Spain and into the Mediterranean, arriving in Greece in August of 2010. She has taken thousands of photographs on the way.
Her photograph was taken on January 16, 2011 in Lefkas using her Olympus E-500. She said, “We had been on a lovely walk around the Lagoon. Sitting in Margaritas, a bar opposite these two glorious boats, the sun started to go down giving the sea and snow-capped mountains this lovely pink hue. I feel so privileged to experience sights like this.”
She added, “I enjoy photography but I'm just an amateur photographer. I'm an artist at heart and although I can often see a good picture, I’m not always able to produce the perfect shot. On this occasion I got the shot I wanted. It wasn't that tough as all the elements were there, interesting light and a picturesque view.”
