New 360 Tours Site

My new site about 360 degree Virtual Tours creation is ready! Now accepting jobs for Greece only. Book your appointment to discuss your business needs.  For your Google Business Page or for your business estate homepage.

360 photos? Hell YEAH!! (but sadly still not for everybody)

 Much has been said the passing months about 360 degrees photos and virtual tours, or better known as "Google Street View Tours".    The pandemic has made it clear that we can no longer visit our favorite places as much as we would want and this resulted in a significant boost towards the virtualization of places and businesses around the world, for the time when we can visit them again.  A while ago, 360 degree hardware equipment (and business opportunity) was fairly new and just for photographers with big pockets and much spare time for the learning curve.  360 degrees photo hosts were very few and expensive and in order to accomplish an adequate level of quality someone had to pass several expensive "masterclasses".  Businesses were almost unaware of the new technology abilities, the integration of such photos in their sites was a pain and the overall cost was relatively high.

The Missing Files: Last winter's snow (12-2016)

I thought I had saved those photos online and had prepared them for a previous blog post, but somehow they got lost into the stack and were never published.  Today I was reminded of this trip, in which I had gone to the snowy Parnitha last year and I searched for the post online, which of course was nowhere to be found.  I headed home wondering why I hadn't post this trip, which was memorable and filled me with energy when I most needed it and found the trip's photos.  But let's take it from the start.

Summer 2017 Projects - Messinia

My final vacation time for this summer was spent in Kalamata in Messinia prefecture, mostly relaxing and sea bathing, but there was enough time to visit Peroulia beach and Koroni with its famous castle and food.  I also spent some hours alone under the dark sky next to Kapetanakis Castle in Charavgi village, photographing the Milky Way (or trying to do it properly this time anyway), using Magic Lantern's Full-Resolution Silent pictures function with the integrated intervallometer, powerbank-to-battery convertor and very high ISO rating for a future timelapse sequence.  Finally, I shot some editorial photos for the now functional bridge in my home village in order to create my final post on this subject.

Summer 2017 Projects - August - Lesvos

The main summer vacation time this year was spent in Lesvos, which is my birthplace and I have rarely visited so far.  Lesvos is widely known as one of the first islands related to the immigration crisis (the second type of crisis flourishing in Greece) and because of the recent earthquake a few months ago.  However, there is much more to discover and the island has a large history dating back to the Prehistoric years.

Summer 2017 Projects - July - Syros

This year lead me to places I had previously gone before, but never had the chance to explore in depth because of time restrains.  Greece has many beautiful places to visit and sometimes, even the town you spend most of your life has hidden gems, the ones you have to know where to look for.  If you spend some time online researching ahead, there is much information for you and planning gets easier and more efficient.  You can also save money planning ahead and visit more places than you would, than if you didn't plan at all. So, this summer lead me to beautiful Syros island, where I had previously seen just the front side of Ermoupolis from the ship deck while going to Santorini some years ago.  We had 5 days to explore the island of Syros and of course they were not nearly enough.

Projects and Events, A Summer 2016 Evaluation

I guess summer is officially over now and looking back, I can remember some beautiful time spent on vacation.  Many photos were shot in beautiful places and endless beaches I had never been before were discovered in my region.  I only regret to have spent so little time organizing small trips, mostly because I spent much time staying in one place and following a "fixed" daily summer routine. Given the money and circumstances I would now prefer having spent some more time away from my region than waking in the morning for early sunbaths, then back for lunch and finally out for strolls with my friends or family.

24th International Meeting of Rhythmic Gymnastics in Kalamata

A challenging environment with flickering lights and inconsistent white balance all the time.  I found myself on this International Meeting of Rhythmic Gymnastics about a month ago and immediately I found myself in front of quick action, low light and weird white balance making this photo shooting a real challenge.  

Pikilo Mountain - A firy view of Athens

After my last blog post, I felt the urge to grab any opportunity for a small photography trip nearby, either alone or with company.  I had accidentally been  at Pikilo Mountain in Attiki prefecture and now I felt it was a great opportunity to further explore it.  Well to be exact, I didn't get there entirely by accident, but because I just wanted to get to the top of that small mountain and had a couple of hours to spend. 

Spring is here! SO WHAT?

Well, Spring is about to reach its peak these days, but frankly I have not understood any change in weather or light color until now.  African dust is everywhere giving a yellow color cast and foggy distant details and the world looks like I am living in a dirty glass jar.  Where are the blue skies and the green fields with their vivid colors?  I don't know!

New Projects and Events, A Summer Evaluation

It's been several months since my last post, some of you thought I had the blog retired altogether.  Well, this is not true, but there was not so much time or peace of mind to write about something... about anything...  Everyone talks about missing time, time badly spent, resting not as much as everyone should and taking too many responsibilities in everyone's hands.  These are also all true for me this passing 6 months and I now know I should have kept up with photo news and updates because I lost some good news.  And of course, I also need to shoot some more successful images for my photobank accounts and make my work available for calendars and high resolution prints in large sizes.  I am also planning of making some large prints in limited editions, small office calendars and a limited edition photobook containing my latest fine art project.

Long exposure, a new true love...

Recently, perhaps rather delayed, I wanted to give a try to long exposure photography, having a ND1000 (or ND 3.0) filter in my bag for some time now and not having used it as many times as I wanted.  So, I cleaned the dust over it and headed towards Sounio and St. Nikolaos in Saronida, Attiki with a friend of mine.  It was poring and the weather was depressing, but we hoped that we would have our chance when the sun would descend.  Since we had a long time ahead, we agreed to head over to Sounio and try some long exposure shots with the heavy clouds passing over the Temple Of Poseidon across the bay.

Sometimes what you see is not enough...

I have been a witness to many quarrels regarding the amount of photo manipulation from time to time.  There are times that I agree with the opinion that too much post processing alters the meaning of the word "photograph" making it mostly a "creative result" and there are other times when I couldn't agree more with an agressive plan of post processing to convey the meaning of the subject.  

Archangels Gabriel and Michael Day (8th November)

Going back to 2009 I have some photos to remember my visit to the local Kalamta airport for the celebration of Archangels Michael and Gabriel, protectors of our Air Force.  It was a 3-day open visit to the local airport and I went there to visit a friend of mine who was attending the events and welcoming the visitors to the exhibition.  

May 2014 (Part 3 of 3, Mount Athos)

The next monastery was the largest and richest on Holy Mount Athos.  I don't know if the word "rich" or "money" is compatible with religion, but this is what we were told about the monastery.  Please note that the monastery has a guard post on the road from Karyes, where the guard checks the visitor names against his list and their permits or "diamonitiria".  I don't know why, but it seems that in this monastery there are a lot of Cypriot visitors.  The monastery was very big with huge buildings and a lot of monks, but it was also very tidy and clean (like every monastery we went, the surrounding paths and rivers are a different story).  We were put in a room with three other guys from Cyprus, nice guys, we had a lot of fun for one day with them and we laughed a lot.  

May 2014 (Part 2 of 3, Mount Athos)

The following morning we had an early rise to catch the bus to Ouranoupolis where we would then take the ferryboat to Dafni, then the bus to Karyes and finally one of the mini busses to Megisti Lavra Monastery.  The morning resembled something coming out of a fairy tale with pink clouds and blue skies as the sun slowly found its way above the mountains.  Almost everyone was sleeping in the bus (or was sleepy like us), but from time to time there were voices talking about that spectacular morning.

May 2014 (Part 1 of 3 Meteora and Thessaloniki)

A couple of months ago I returned from a trip to Meteora and Holy Mount Athos and it was only a few weeks ago when I finished processing my shots.  I came home with over 2.500 photos shot in 9 days, and I estimated I was shooting one shot every 3.5 minutes excluding the time I went to sleep!  It's a large amount of data and some of the photos are not good, some of them are going to be merged together for panoramas or exposure blending.  Basically I was walking with the camera in my hands and my lens on my backpack almost all the time, except when I was getting really tired and giving up for the day (and even then, I occasionally regretted not going out to shoot some more).

500px, a good idea turning bad?

500px is one of the top photo communities today and a place where good photographs are always plenty and eye catching.  I am not sure how you can learn photographic techniques from this community, as it is up to the photographers to share their ways and it is not so chat-friendly to discuss on line with the creators.  That would require enormous processing strength and bandwidth as there are many registered users.  You can actually learn something from their blog, or their new "ISO" site, but generally speaking information is very scarce.

Lucius river, a dreamy forest path in Arcadia

It was high noon when we decided to go for a photo trip with a friend of mine around the region.  Clouds were present and we feared for rainfall, but there was something pushing us to make that trip anyway.  Finally we decided to go a little further this time and we drove about an hour north to Arcadia region having occasionally drops of rain in the way and hoping that the weather would allow us to see and photograph the beautiful surroundings near Lucius river.  At first, we arrived at the place where Ancient Gortys was located with some ruins of exposed ancient structures lying among green wet grass.  It had just rained and the rocks were all shining around, but we knew that we had to walk by the river to truly admire it's beauty.

Influence...

There are a lot of people a photographer should thank for inspiration, but usually he doesn’t.  There are a lot of photographers whose work is admired and sometimes copied and are never mentioned to one’s photography works.  It is inevitable for a photographer to like, admire, get frustrated, get disappointed, curse (I do that a lot!) when something in the frame is not as it should be and tries to find a way around it.  Well, this time I have to thank all those who influenced me, who confronted me in photographic arguments, who have corrected me in ways I could not have imagined at that time, and to those who just deleted me from their lives because we were incapable of discussing a constructive critique.