Athens is a mirror of modern Greece. These are the words of the world famous photographer Constantine Manos in an interview for Balkon3 in response to the question what would his famous photo collection entitled Greek Portfolio look like, if it were made in present-day Greece, not 50 years ago.
In the 1960’s Manos depicted Greece by photographing villages where time seemed to have stopped. In the small settlements without electricity he captured tradition, customs, life, joy and death of local residents. His photographs sealed a page in history right before things changed forever. Manos says that now the villages of his photographs are different places and cannot present the true face of Greece.
According to Manos, one needs to travel to the capital Athens in order to feel the pulse of modern Greece and that is exactly what he did, decades after the “Greek Portfolio”. Unlike the black and white photographs of villages, this time he depicts life on the streets of Athens in colour, suitable to the new millennium. Here’s what the eye of Manos saw through the lens of his camera.
Text: A.M.
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