Afytos by Ira: Part 2 of Ira's Documentation of Greek Summer
Shot only a few weeks ago in Afytos, a small village in Chalkidiki, Greece, the following photographs compose Part 2 of Ira’s documentation of “Greek Summer”. Captured during the Covid19 pandemic, they are accompanied by Ira’s recollections of the trip, her thoughts on quarantining in Greece with her family, and reflections on the changes her approach to photography has gone through the past to years.
Copenhagen, July 28th 2020
Sitting in front of the images I shot this summer in Afytos, I found myself experiencing a word drought. Everything I wrote sounded like a work email, with words like “unforeseen”, “unpredicted”, “tough”, “particular” flying around the page every time I tried to describe this past year and summer.
If I’m being completely honest, it’s been a while since I wrote down my thoughts, feelings or anything that is not an academic paper really, so maybe I’m just rusty. I used to journal a lot a few years ago, but it never became a habit that stuck with me. It always came and left in waves, like many of my biggest passions in life did. Any who, when I was in Afytos, I got inspired to write again. I didn’t. But, I “wrote” in my head. I remember listening to my ‘soul cleanse’ playlist on the beach and getting this urge to write about what I was experiencing. I promised myself I’d do it that night, by the pool, when everyone else would be asleep. I definitely over-romanticised the idea in my head, like I tend do. And while dreaming of how nice it would be by the pool, I did also think of everything I wanted to write. You know that video that went around a few months ago and checked if you have an inner voice or not. Well, I most definitely have one.
I don’t really remember what I wanted to write about. I think something about how walking around barefoot made me feel more connected to myself, how the taste of greek salad felt like a symphony for my tastebuds, how the view from our hotel made me glad I’m alive to see such beauty, how thankful I am to be able to share this beauty with the two people I love the most in this world and how I sometimes wish cities would have blackouts more often, because I love how being able to see the stars against the night sky makes you realise just how tiny you really are. I think being on a family holiday revived my dormant inner child. I don’t know if I just got a little carried away with looking at the night sky and feeling small but I really did feel little during that trip. Not powerless or hopeless or any other “-less”. It was more of a grounding feeling. A reminder of how small the bubble I live in truly is and how little the knowledge I possess about the world really is.
Afytos made me feel alive again in ways I hadn’t in a really long time. It gave me the desire to return to Copenhagen and reinvent myself. It was cathartic. Catharsis (κάθαρσις) /kəˈθɑːsɪs/; the process of releasing, and thereby being relieved from, strong or repressed emotions. While sharing laughs, stories and Margaritas with my parents I was relieved from burdens I didn’t know I carried and let go of things I didn’t even know I was still holding on to.
In Part 1, I talked a lot about how visually beautiful I find the images I shot two years ago. I definitely don’t shoot like that anymore. The pictures below most definitely do not compare to those I took in Yerakini. They’re a lot simpler, less thought through, more amateur even. But they feel honest, raw and very representative of my memories. Although I certainly do not think these images represent my growth and evolution, they do make me realise I’ve changed the way I approach my photography. I’m a lot more careless with my snaps; I look a lot less for the perfect image and a lot more for the perfect memory, the perfect light to frame it and the perfect colors to bring it to life.
The following photographs capture my 7 days of catharsis in Afytos, Chalkidiki. And they do so in an almost perfectly accurate manner.
