Lipsi, Photography and Me:

Rediscovering photography on Lipsi.
Copyright: Serban Enache/Dreamstime

Readers of my previous review of the little island of Lipsi will notice that it came without my usual photographs (I licensed two images from photo agency Dreamstime.com). There's a story to that which some might find interesting.

From my biography you will see that I used to be a professional press photographer -mainly concentrating on politicians and other public figures. The advent of (initially) very expensive digital cameras and the founding of the internet led to a situation where my type of photography was no longer viable due to the changes in the way newspapers and television news made use of and paid for images. I changed careers and moved on from photography -even selling my set of film cameras (two Olympus OM1 SLRs and a medium format Mamiyaflex).

Moving forward to the early 2000s saw me start to visit small Greek islands where my photography was just limited to holiday snaps using a one-use disposable film camera. Quite sufficient for record shots for me -with no thoughts of ever offering images for sale. Then came my Lipsi trip in 2004.....

It started with the welcome meeting (the morning after our "peril at sea" transfer from Rhodes). One of my fellow guests was sporting a very substantial professional level camera (a Nikon or Canon). My little disposable suddenly looked very insignificant compared to that and I felt the first twinges of missing out on "proper" photography. In conversation it turned out that he worked for the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) and that him and his French partner were both Greek island lovers -recommending Tilos as another small island to check out. Now, when I was photographing, the BBC (News) had been one of my major customers. Again, there was that feeling of missing out and links to my past.

Throughout my two weeks on Lipsi my BBC man became a regular sight (it's a very small island!) lining up, no doubt, stunning professional images of the island. That Greek wedding that I went to check out in the early hours? Of course, there he was already -skilfully capturing the action from every angle (I hadn't even brought my camera). By the time of the Panagia Harou religious procession I didn't just want to take a snap. Oh no, I wanted (needed) to "document" it -the small fact that my camera was rubbish not putting me off. A misjudgement on the route the procession would take found me careering through a building site to regain ground and catch up with the action. That, by the way, is a key to much of Editorial photography -knowing what is going to happen, when and where. This time my BBC friend had excelled himself -not only being in place to capture the procession throughout but (the final triumph) had his partner waiting, positioned at the church, with ANOTHER camera -shooting the event from a whole different viewpoint. I think I ended up with a few blurry images of the band marching and that was it.

Back home in England I had a lot to think about but one thing I knew was that I really wanted to do some serious photography again. My BBC friend had ensured that. By chance, somebody I knew was selling their whole camera outfit. An Olympus OM20 SLR complete with a whole range of lenses and accessories -and at a bargain price. I was back in the zone. Crisp, sharp images. Changing lenses as required. Using different apertures/shutter speeds to get the effect I wanted all started to come back to me.

This also coincided with getting easy access to the internet for the first time and the discovery that there were actually photo agencies that would take sufficiently good images from anyone, professional or otherwise and market them. I suddenly had an outlet for my creative drive and started submitting to a few. I pretty soon realised that in a digital age the Olympus film camera (no matter how good) wasn't the right camera for this new direction and invested (for me) a small fortune on a Nikon D80 DSLR and eight years later that same camera is still going strong.

Of course, I would still love going to small Greek islands with or without a camera, just as I would enjoy going to airshows without taking photographs but having the camera adds a whole different dimension -it really makes you look properly at things and look for those things other people do not notice -and the satisfaction of having good images to remember experiences by is untold. I owe a big thanks to that BBC photographer for giving me the inspiration to get photographing again. If that's you, or it sounds like someone you know please do leave a comment below. Regards, David.