wasted youth,cinema magazine, issue 220

After the portraiture work on the winter issue of Cinema magazine,  I also got involved in the spring issue (#220), taking portraits of the directors and some of the cast of the hit movie Wasted Youth.

The location we chose was Tora K44 at Gazi, with respect to the movie's association with that particular venue. It was March 2011, the day was growing bigger and luckily K44 is facing west, so I could make the most out of the setting sun's light.

Despite the tight time frame (it was two days before the magazine was sent for printing), I wanted to use medium format, so I opted for the Bronica SQ-A along with a handful of Kodak Portra 400NC films. I also had my dSLR with me, to serve as a lightmeter and to take backup shots.

In the beginning I tried the dSLR for quick portraits, just to be on the safe side, but I wasn't really thrilled by the results so I immediately switched to the Bronica. I have to admit that I never got the hand of using a dSLR for anything apart from concert/event/low-light photography - I really feel much more at ease using medium format for anything that doesn't require fast paced action or really high ISO. When I had the Bronica in my hands, everything felt easier.

I did the standalone portraits first:

[argiris papadimitropoulos]

[jan vogel]

[the gang]

[argiris & jan]

...and then I set up the tripod for the group photo, which would be the most troublesome of all, since I had to overcome low shutter speed (1/15-1/30 because of the rapidly diminishing available light) and the unwanted movements of five people and... the dog of Argiris.

...which proved quite hard, considering the dog had specific views about the legs he found on his way:

[leg-lovin']

...after the dog did his thing with the desired legs, we settled down to get one frame with everybody staying still and composed at the same time:

[wasted youth]

...although the magazine chose to publish the first group photo because  (I guess) it was funnier. I would be seriously torn between the spontaneity of the first photo as opposed to the politically-correct stillness of the second photo, but happily this decision was not mine to take.

new greek wave, cinema magazine, issue 219

On November 2010 I did a number of portraits for issue 219 of Cinema magazine, together with dear Marina Nalbanti. The article, aptly named "New Greek Wave", was about new people appearing in Greek cinematography, directors, writers, producers, a total of 77 persons being interviewed across 40 pages in the magazine.

In order to keep a consistent style through all the portraits, we settled on using our Holga & Diana medium format cameras. However, I decided to bring along my Mamiya C220 since it is always nice to have a real camera, with selectable shutter speeds and a fast lens, as a backup to the quirky lomography beasts.

I kept all these photos in my archive for quite a while and now, with the next issue of Cinema magazine about to be published, I thought it was high time to select a few and post them in my blog. Some of the portraits are double - I was taking photos both with the Holga/Diana and the Mamiya, and by looking at the totally different feeling each camera can create, there's only one thing that can be deduced: the best camera is the one you're taking pictures with.  

(christos karakepelis)

(stelios charalambopoulos)

(gerasimos rigas)

(marco gastine)

(alexis kardaras)

(panos karkanevatos)

(stratos tzitzis)

(babis makridis)

(giannis fagkras)

(giannis oikonomidis)

(aliki danezi-knutsen)

(antonis kokkinos)

(anestis charalambidis)