Efi Longinou talks with Panos + Mary

-Hello Panos + Mary, would you like to tell us some things for you besides photography?

Hi, and thank you for the invitation.

We are an artist duo and a couple in life. Panos is a physicist with a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering, and Mary is an electrical engineer with a M.A. in Graphic Arts, so we both received formal education in hard sciences. This fact affected the way we see and understand the world. We live in Heraklion, Crete, and we have two cats, Sahara and Uma.

-I discovered your outstanding work almost two years ago through Instagram, and it took me a while to understand that you are a photographic duo. I would like to know when you started working together and how it is to photograph with another person.

We have been working together since 2009. The collaboration came effortlessly. It felt easy, as we are compatible personalities with similar interests and backgrounds. Additionally, we matured photographically together, as we were exposed to the same photographic stimuli and experiences.

We photograph, edit and sequence together. Shooting together helps, as we can combine skills and take care of details that might not be noticed by just one. Mary does the development, and Panos does the printing. We keep these two tasks separate to achieve the homogeneity of our projects.

  - In your project “Cornucopia”, you research the Lassithi of Creta island plateau's elusive identity. Portraits and landscapes share a dreamy poetic mood, creating a sense of mystery and making viewers want to know more. Would you like to tell us a few words about that project?

“Cornucopia” is a project about the Lassithi plateau and is the second project shot there. The first one was black and white, titled “Gardens of Oblivion”. “Cornucopia” is the outcome of our fixation on this place and a personal investigation of what makes the Lassithi plateau unique.

“Cornucopia” consists of three parts that may not be obvious to the viewer. The introduction is dominated by the mountains and serves as a small tribute to the forces that shaped this land. Second part is related to the mythological aspect of this place. In the third part, we draw from the fall of man to make an allusive reference to the severe depopulation problem of the plateau.

- With your project “Mother Motif” we see a sensitive approach related to the concept of family. You chose to represent the relationships that are developing between mother-daughter with colorful fabrics and plastic flowers. How did you select these two elements? And how did you come up with that title?

Mother motif is the prototype that through repetition creates the pattern. The title is our reference to the learned maternal love transcending women generations.

The flowers and the fabrics are two components of this project. The third one is the changing pattern, which represent the learned behaviors, that pass from one generation to the next. The flowers are related to the mother's fascination for them as ornamental elements. The fabrics relate to a subtitle, yet a meaningful, story of affection and dedication. Years ago, when Mary was studying to participate in the university entrance exams -a painstaking process for anyone aiming for one of the top-class universities- her mother wanted to support and encourage her. While Mary was studying, she was sitting next to her, silently keeping her company, while she was using garments taken from old dresses, turning them into aprons. At the same time, these aprons serve our project as a manifestation of maternal love and by referencing the concept of identity.

- In “Second Chance” is a project about the Second Chance School of Mytilene. How did you come to the idea of approaching the people there?

We knew there was a school for adults in Mytilene (at that time, we were living on Lesvos island). Mary is a high school teacher, so it was relatively easy for us to approach the school principal and discuss the possibility of working on a project with portraits of the Second Chance School students and teachers.

During this project, we met remarkable men and women who were striving for a better future, and we tried to record their stories and efforts through a more personal relationship.

-I noticed that your photobooks are self-published. How difficult or challenging is that?

Publishing a photobook is a difficult task requiring a lot of work, time, and money. For us, the production our own photobook is sometimes the way to complete a project.

Self-published photo books -quite often- are beautiful objects, and the making of one can be a creative experience. One has to decide the style and the design that suits the project and then struggle with the reality of what actually can be done. Overall, producing a photobook is a balancing act that also involves compromise.

-Which are your favorite photobooks and why?

We love photobooks! We have a personal collection and so many favorite photobooks. Some of them are:

• “Ein-heit” by Michael Schmidt. We appreciate it for the direct plain, and to the point approach.

• “Redheaded Peckerwood” by Christian Patterson. Phenomenal story building and diversity of practices.

• “Sleeping by the Mississippi” by Alec Soth for the overall feeling and unsurpassed narrative.

• “Americans Parade” by George Georgiou. Beautiful images, solid execution, and an amazing book design.

• “Jasper” by Matthew Genitempo. Atmospheric and beautifully crafted poetic approach.

• “Gasoline” by David Campany. Love the concept and the execution. Examplery use of newspapers archives.

• “The White Sky” by Mimi Plumb for the beautiful narrative and the masterful execution.

• “Moises” by Mariela Sancari. Unique book design that really nails the concept.

- What would you advise a young photographer who wants to start a photo project?

Be sure that you choose a subject you are genuinely interested in and that you have access to it. Start shooting and investigating at the same time what has been done by others. Use this knowledge to decide what ideas and approaches you can use or avoid in order to make something new. Don’t be afraid to reject pictures, be relentless.

⁃ Would you like to share with us what comes next?  An upcoming exhibition or a new project?

We have been working on “Inherently Unpredictable and Reassuringly Expectable” for the last few years, but we do have some new project ideas to explore.

The Dangerous Idea of Danger

A quick scan of street photography workshops online these days will inevitably reveal a bizarre emphasis on fear: “Conquer your fear!” they cry. “Overcome your fear!” or “Get over your fear (in five easy steps!)”

It would seem to be one of the basic tenets of street photography instruction, yet I feel that there is a potentially harmful misconception in many street photography circles that the practice somehow requires photographers to be “brave” and “bold”, implying that one is performing some feat of great intrepidity, engaging in a competitive challenge full of strutting machismo rather than the contemplative exercise I’ve found it to be, where bravery of the intellectual and emotional varieties are much more useful in challenging one’s own preconceptions as well as those of others. The Internet coaches, rather, tend to describe SP in hunting-related terms, making getting the “shot” or “capture” the paramount goal, and videos of famous photographers engaging in aggressive behavior have been both held up as examples to emulate as well as “prove” to others that street photography itself is a questionable pursuit, even at times encouraging violent physical reprisals.

“Oh, I could never be that brave!” is something I’m often told, sometimes in a disapproving tone, when people find out that I engage in candid photography. But truth be told, I am not at all brave; in fact, I’m quite shy. I’m uncomfortable in large groups, and the thought of too much social engagement often overwhelms me; I never know quite what to say in such situations, and I usually end up on the edges of things, listening and watching. The things I am most confident in saying, I tend to say with my camera, because it is more faithful to my thoughts and observations than I can ever hope to be in other forms of interaction.

Robert Capa’s oft-quoted words, “If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough,” might have had something to do with this, and adherents of Capa might want to delve a little deeper into the notorious photojournalist’s history before applying his words to their physical street photography practice. Closer to the present, the focus on machismo perpetuated especially by the IT-driven influx of people, mostly straight white men in Western nations, attracted to the practice of street photography from the mid-2000’s on also had an annoying tendency to remove empathy from the process, turning our focus away from the nature of what we want to say and placing it squarely on the superficiality of how we can dominate others. When I look at work, however, I don’t generally judge it in terms of how brave the photographer might have been in taking the shot, but rather the depth of their perception.

This isn’t to imply that all of street photography has been infected with this point of view; there are still many out there continuing to work from a genuine sense of visual and emotional curiosity. Indeed, it does seem that many if not most of the most perceptive photographers have been introverted individuals who give themselves the space, both mentally and socially, to perceive things that others don’t, resulting in more interesting photography. Framing one’s goals in terms of confidence in one’s perceptive abilities and a healthy respect for one’s subjects seems more likely to take one farther than sheer derring-do, which emphasizes the photographer’s sense of entitlement at the expense of their subjects, throwing the results of the interaction further from our realm of consideration.

This also doesn’t mean that bravado is simply bad, rather a suggestion that it might not be as vital a parameter as we’ve been led to believe. Courage may indeed be useful, but the best work in my opinion is not about bravery; it’s about honesty. Bravery is certainly necessary in the realm of photojournalism, and the conflation of that type of photography with street photography is no doubt at least partially to blame for this approach, but I maintain that, at their best, both genres come down to empathy, introspection and respect more than physical courage.

Everyone is different; some people feed off the energy such anxiety provides, but in general one’s approach will show in one’s results, and outside of the Gildens and Cohens of the world (both of whom could be said to be shy by nature, which I believe has resulted in compelling, introspective work that is overshadowed by the superficial perception of their practices), a large portion of the street photography that is taken under the misconception that “the bolder the photographer the better the shot” is actually rather tedious to look at thanks to a lack of real connection or observation, sometimes even embarrassingly so. Conversely, the imperative that one must be recklessly bold to create compelling work might also have resulted in a contrarian sector of street photography practiced by photographers who have simply gone the other way, eschewing human interaction almost entirely and relying solely on geometric shadows and colors in lieu of the direct portrayal of humans.

So where do we go from here? Perhaps, instead of these attempts to assuage some feeling of guilt that people assume is inherent to the practice of street photography, we should ponder just why that tired trope is given such prominence. What engenders this feeling of fear, and what effect does it have on our work? Why do we fear to express ourselves? Why do we see our own gaze as potentially offensive to others? Are we compensating for a reluctance to examine our own issues?

In my view, it is one of many indicators that attention has been commodified and thus weaponized by certain sectors, starting with the media taking an ever-greater share of our limited notice with its 24/7 presence, followed by social media, which has worked to capitalize and assign a power structure to the nature of our attention. Thus, only certain kinds of attention, e.g. fame and “likes” and “follows” are seen as positive and worthy of pursuit. They hold power and authority in today’s attention market. As a result, other kinds of attention have become vilified and shunned according to this scale. Among these is being noticed in public when one hasn’t specifically asked to be (and sometimes even if one has, but it’s the “wrong” kind of attention). If social media fame and praiseworthy attention hold power, it creates a structure wherein the act of gaining this attention must, in many people’s minds, come at the expense of others. Thus the “hunting” analogy has come into the common street photography lexicon as far as most people were concerned, along with not only an influx of street photographers seeking such a pursuit in such a mindset, but also a flood of thus-inspired photos vying for fame on Instagram, which also increased the pressure to post multiple times a day, regardless of quality, lest users’ “brand awareness” takes a hit. The irony, of course, is that such servitude to social media popularity is the antithesis of bravery.

Be that as it may, distancing ourselves from the entire paradigm might be more effective. Perhaps if people new to street photography were steered away from the redirection of their sense of intimidation, examining rather than avoiding the vicious cycle of questionable behavior and guilt suppression, they could concentrate instead on the nature of their perception. Photographers might be better served by exploring their own motivations, what they have to say and how, rather than investing themselves so fully in the assumption that they are somehow doing something so wrong that they need to summon a certain amount of physical courage to effectively pursue it.

Introspection, however, isn’t exactly a path for the meek. It is much easier to talk about “overcoming your fear” than addressing why the fear is there in the first place. It could be that the bravery we actually need to express ourselves fully through photography or any other medium is emotional rather than physical in nature, and can only be found in the courage to be honest with ourselves. I think Oliviero Toscani, one of the founders of Colors magazine, described this quite aptly in an interview when answering a question about modern photographers’ motivations: “…no one teaches them not to be frightened of being frightened. If you do something without being frightened, it’ll never be interesting or good. Everyone wants to be sure of what they’re doing. Any really interesting idea simply can’t be safe.”

by TC Lin