Book Preface
Insignificant Events in the Service of Visual Poetry
A photograph encompasses (in different proportions each time) both a set of information and a set of poetic visual expressions. These varying proportions partly determine the function of the particular photograph.
Photojournalism was for a long time the bridge between applied photography, where information was most important, and creative, or as I prefer to call it, poetic photography. It's a fact that photojournalism gave rise to a significant number of photographers who legitimately claimed a place among the great poets of the medium. There was even a period when photojournalism was the mainstream photography. As the famous French photographer and co-founder of the Magnum photo agency, Henri Cartier-Bresson said, whatever type of photography you were doing, you had to declare yourself a photojournalist, much like today's trend is to declare oneself an artist (i.e., a visual artist) instead of just a photographer.
The heyday of photojournalism coincided with a time of innocence, both regarding the truth of photography itself and its constructive influence. The public, with childlike naivety, believed what it saw in photographs and filled in what it didn’t see, believing these too were part of the visual information. Photographers believed that their work would help build a better world.
Since then, our eyes and minds have been filled with photographs. The world probably didn't become better, but even when it slightly improved (if at all), it doesn’t seem to be the photojournalistic images that contributed to it. Worse yet, the bombardment of the public with these often horrific and desperate images created a kind of mithridatism and insensitivity, pushing photographers into a (well-intentioned or malevolent) competition of exaggerating horror. Familiarity with the photographic image and its components gradually made the world realize the limits of truth and the power of verisimilitude that consistently characterize it, leading to a cautious approach towards it. The advent of digital photography contributed to this distrust.
I can't hide that this development, which perplexed many sincere and well-meaning photographers, pleases me to some extent because it reverts photography to its privileged space of visual poetry and secondarily, the ancillary role of visual accompaniment to information, that which depicts what is referred to in the accompanying oral or written discourse. Simply put, it's time to realize that photography neither narrates nor provides more information than it (in the strictest sense) describes. And these are despairingly few to give us what we once expected from it. No photographer can simultaneously give us in one photograph the information about the specific place, time, elements of the people depicted, their formal and substantive relations, their emotional state, and what is not contained in the small rectangle but nevertheless was an integral part of reality at that moment. All these we derive either from the accompanying texts or from what our mind arbitrarily supplements. And there ends any discussion about the validity, accuracy, and truth of photographic information. The great American photographer Walker Evans was right when he said that no photograph is a document. Perhaps the courts are also right in not accepting photographs without concurrent oral testimony.
The many known manipulations of photographs, whether done by unethical journalists or regimes, ultimately had a small part in weakening the trust in photographic truth. A much greater role was played by the public's familiarization and interaction with photography and its function. But as if that were not enough, the omnipotence of television came to level the photographic information. This leveling is not so much due to the spread of television as to the particular nature of the medium. The moving television image is inherently much closer to the informational narrative than to visual poetry. The immediacy of the captures and their reproduction relative to the space, time, and conditions of their creation is so verisimilar, and the continuous and simultaneous presence of the accompanying speech so convincing, that the audience found the most potent source of its information.
These new conditions led many photojournalists to a complete deadlock. On the contrary, they should be pleased. The broader the scope of a creator and the more possible choices and directions, the greater his confusion. But as the horizon clarifies, so does the specificity of his efforts' aim, consequently improving the quality of the result.
Many argued in the face of the new state of affairs that the role of the photojournalist is to give a personal view of things through his subjectivity. However, this claim has many weaknesses. First of all, the journalistic quality should automatically be removed, given that this approach negates objectivity, a prerequisite of the journalistic function. Moreover, this negation is accompanied by deception as the personal interpretation uses the supposedly real information of the photograph to substantiate the personal view. But beyond this, how can a photograph, weak in narration and burdened with the doubt of the accuracy of its information, nevertheless express something as complex as a personal stance on an event? At most, it could be limited to a simplistic and univocal slogan-like emphasis. Then we would be dealing with advertising photography. And unfortunately, we have seen quite a few examples of such "advertising" photojournalism.
Therefore, the only way for photojournalism to survive is to downplay the proportion of information, i.e., the evidential discourse, in favor of poetry, i.e., the metaphorical discourse. This is what the greatest representatives of the genre, like W. Eugene Smith, did instinctively long before today's identity problems of photography arose. A simple test to determine if this exchange of different discourses works is to consider whether the photograph would still be interesting after the disproval of its elements. If so, then the metaphorical discourse prevails.
The unsuspecting viewer-reader does not need (fortunately) to be interested in the plethora of terms defining the style of photographic images. However, there are many related and somewhat (to significantly) different terms that define the character of photographs drawn from the truth of daily life. We can talk about photojournalistic photography, reportage photography, documentary photography (or photo-document), and street photography. The last one's distance from the first is about the weight that the actual event carries in the photograph.
Classifying various photographers into one of these categories is not always easy, nor is it necessary. For example, Garry Winogrand would undoubtedly be classified in street photography, and W. Eugene Smith in photojournalism. However, the latter's photos from the street scenes in front of his house or of his young daughter Juanita complicate the classification game. Similarly, the (somewhat arbitrary and hasty) inclusion of Walker Evans and Robert Frank in the documentary photography category is insufficient to understand their exceptionally complex work. After all, every photograph is a kind of document, but no photograph is exactly a document.
In the final analysis, whether all photographs are intended for publication in a journalistic print or, conversely, all for the photographer's drawer, what matters is not the classification and naming but the dominant element from which they draw their interest. If this is related to the significance and truth of the actual event depicted, then the photograph is journalistic, certifies an event (document), belongs to the realm of applied imagery, and the overturning of the event's truth erases it. Conversely, if the dominant point is related to a new event arising from the real event's aesthetic and compositional choices by the photographer, then the weight shifts from the event to the creator, the photograph belongs to the realm of creative imagery, and the overturning of the truth is not as significant since the new-created event does not exist in reality. The photographer's choice (angle of view, change of value hierarchy, composition, form, etc.) gives the real event a significance that it did not have in life itself.
These two directions remind us of the distinction between journalistic and literary/poetic discourse. And it's probably certain that a writer who is also a journalist must find a different way of expressing his text depending on the intended space. However, with photography, things are not exactly the same. The only economic and communicative way out for a photographer drawing his themes from the reality outside and around him is the various prints. These typically demand and showcase photographs with the real event as the dominant element, i.e., journalistic or even more narrowly, newsworthy photos. However, a photographer living and working in the realm of print journalism usually aspires to publish his photographs that belong to the creative space, while the audience and clients expect the transmission of real events from the photographs. This is both difficult and not always correct. It has often led to the production and publication of incorrect photographs, i.e., photographs without a goal or content.
The famous Magnum agency faced this dichotomy years ago. And it has representatives of both tendencies. Therefore, it has managed for many years to maintain a precarious position between applied journalistic imagery and poetic creative photography. I assume there must occasionally be corresponding tendencies towards one or the other direction within its ranks, as the agency's reputation relies not only (or primarily) on the news but also (or mainly) on the quality of the image. However, the concept of "image quality" has also been marked by a divisive misunderstanding. The assumption that the obvious formalistic garb of the photograph can secure its artistic character, while its journalistic character is ensured through the event it depicts. And not a few photographers have fallen into this trap, disappointed as they were by the thematic content of the image and its appeal. However, the quality of the image precisely means the interdependence of these two elements, not the prioritization of one over the other. The form is determined by the content but also determines it. Nonetheless, Magnum has become the only professional photographic space that tried, and often succeeded, to bridge photographic quality with the needs of a journalistic market.
In the field of photography, Greece never had a significant tradition. There were few and disconnected gifted personalities in photography. Voula Papaioannou, Dimitris Harissiadis, Kostas Balafas, and a few others were not enough to create a Greek tradition. Our photojournalists, in their overwhelming majority, were reporters of information, of the real event. Their photographs usually offer us historical rather than poetic interest. The few exceptions (e.g., Harissiadis) are not enough to overturn this observation.
A Greek-born photographer, Konstantinos Manos, who began his significant work in the '60s and later, should not normally be included in Greek photography, as he was born and raised in America and drew from there the foundations and knowledge of his photography. Nevertheless, we can consider that with the Greek-American Konstantinos Manos, for the first time, albeit indirectly, Greece was represented at the Magnum agency.
However, the real first Greek photographer to be accepted into this agency was Nikos Economopoulos, which is an achievement in itself. But like every good photographer, Economopoulos is not classified into photographic categories. The fact that he participates in a photojournalistic agency like Magnum, combined with the usually Third World spaces he chooses to photograph, could mislead us, giving the impression that he is interested in the news and the unusual. They could lead us to classify him in the category of photojournalism or the more vague and misleading category of documentary photography or even the more disturbing category of "concerned photography," suggesting perhaps that all other photographers who photograph other subjects lack this sensitivity (non-concerned).
There is indeed the danger that the viewer of his photographs may be carried away by the primary thematic level of the images and seek interest only through journalistic information. The above analysis might help him understand that what is depicted in Economopoulos's photographs rarely has special significance as raw events, at least with the gravity to which the world of news and reporting has accustomed us. And if we ignore the explanatory caption, we rarely can (or have reason to) determine the place and time of the photograph. Therefore, the questions arise of what news the photograph conveys and what kind of document constitutes a photograph whose time, place, and protagonists are not certain (from the body of the photograph itself). What essentially supports the viewer's interest is (with few exceptions where Economopoulos functions as a reporter) Economopoulos's photographic language and, to step outside the realm of photography, his curiosity about life in general, beyond major events.
Economopoulos loved photography while already earning his living as a journalist. Hence, the Magnum agency was a logical solution for him to bridge professional employment with the quality and recognition of his photographic work. This goal gave great impetus to Economopoulos's early photographic efforts, lending discipline, hope, and content to his plans. I met Nikos Economopoulos shortly after he had taken his first very good photographs in Turkey. I watched with what passion he informed himself about the work of his future colleagues at the agency. I admired his persistence to work methodically and enduringly, setting aside all practical difficulties. And finally, I was happy about the fulfillment of his first dream, his first goal. The Magnum agency had acquired one of its best photographers.
Every great group of photographers, and Magnum is such a group, develops certain common characteristics that arise from a common discourse, a code of communication. Thus, Magnum also has a style that many photographers there follow. Is Economopoulos one of them? The answer is ambiguous. It is true that one recognizes "Magnum-like" elements in Economopoulos, but these mainly have to do with the external presence of his photographs. Once we penetrate their core, we realize that he is one of the few in the agency (and among the very few in the whole realm of applied documentary photography) who knows how to use photography from its abstract side. His best photographs, at least those I personally love and appreciate the most, are those that rely on transforming an initially insignificant real event into a major photographic event. This fundamental principle for every good photograph is not easy to apply in the profession of photojournalism, where habit (and clients demand) that the photographed event be significant in reality (and not just in the photograph). It would suffice, of course, for someone to think and realize (although it is not indeed easy) that the significant event can almost never be described as significant through the ellipsis of an instantaneous capture. Hence the need for the indirect and abstract function of the image.
In Economopoulos's photographs, a smile, a tilt of the head, an unusual leap, a glance, from insignificant details of the background of everyday life are re-evaluated and transformed into primary photographic events. The other equally insignificant details complete and support this first and celebratory entry of our gaze into the image. Thus, a new event is created, the great significance of which is due to the composition and upgrading of many insignificant everyday details. It is also noteworthy that in the best of Economopoulos's photographs, the dominant event depicts a positive detail of life. Tenderness, laughter, humor, kindness, sweetness, grace, playfulness. This is encountered so often and with such methodicalness that it constitutes almost a kind of signature. Given that this "smile" of the photograph arises from a world of poverty and unhappiness, a contrast is created which in turn provokes a tension in the photograph. From this stems the creative emotion.
Most of Economopoulos's photographs are taken away from urban areas, featuring inhabitants of forgotten villages, farmers, workers, people who seem to move in timeless spaces. This thematic could in itself constitute a significant trap and lead to photographs of either picturesque deviations or social denunciation. Economopoulos avoids both pitfalls. To resist such a slippery direction, he chooses to maintain a distance from the subjects, to focus on the insignificant, and to emphasize compositional inventiveness.
Among the many photographs of Economopoulos, there are some, related to each other, in which the above qualities are particularly evident. I will refer to those that held my gaze the longest and which constitute, in my absolutely personal opinion and the most robust aesthetic view.
The girls with the white socks and white jackets (Photograph 1). The space is defined by black beams. The gaze of the little girl in the foreground is our entry into the image. The theatricality and austerity of the composition effectively address the trap of easy sentimentality lurking when so many children look at the lens.
The two men shaking hands, embraced in the center of the image (Photograph 2). The boldness of the composition lies in its absolute "centering." Something that usually does not yield good results. The focus of interest catapults the event out of the everyday flow of things. And so the photographer can keep the background clean and frame the photographic event without creating visual confusion and verbosity.
The boy with the cardboard box on the wall, behind the men playing cards (Photograph 3). The contrast between the two levels leads us more dynamically into the depth. The space is again defined theatrically. Something Economopoulos controls impeccably. In this photographic-theatrical scene, the main event is the non-event occupying the background between the three distinct walls. The real event of card playing in the foreground is secondary. This is precisely one of the qualities of photography that a good photographer is called to exploit. The reversal of the optical value of things. Journalism would prefer the social event of card playing. The creator, however, insists on discovering the insignificant.
The little girl in the white dress in the trailer (Photograph 4). The photographer, with his artistic instinct, knows how to recognize the dynamic photographic event and to exploit its power without suffocating it with formalistic distortions, which would only be necessary when these same would constitute the event. The photograph exists because the lovely little girl proudly spreads her dress for us, but not only. This event emerges from the body of the image because there is an absolute symmetry, a certainty, and calmness, possibly in contrast to the poverty of the environment. Even if the little girl were absent, the other elements of the photograph would be ready to receive the minimum and maximize it. The composition is what gives each event its particular significance.
Economopoulos's famous bride (Photograph 5). One of his older and better photographs. He uses again the sparse and strict composition, which he seems to control so effectively as soon as his gaze identifies the creative detail. The composition erases everything around the woman. We don't talk about a wedding but about a bride. The emphasis on whiteness (possibly both during shooting and printing) transforms the bride into a figure illuminated by the harsh light of a spotlight. The absolute whiteness of the dreamlike world contrasts with the dark and dim image of the realism of the environment. The baby in white clothes on the right "breaks" the symmetry of the black surroundings. Happiness and unhappiness, the transient time of the ceremony and the transient time of the photograph, curiosity and pride of the gaze, ugliness and beauty of the face, are juxtaposed and complemented. Everything moves between two directions, without the photographer taking a stance.
The boys with the balls in the middle of the dirt road (Photograph 6). They seem positioned. They pose in a theoretically inappropriate space. It is not a playground. It is not even a village. And there, in the nameless landscape, amidst the general gray of the photograph, they look at us with confidence and pride. The slightest detail on them, amidst the simplicity of the other elements, acquires tremendous significance. Like the bandage on the forehead or the stripes on their clothes.
The man between the two trains (Photograph 7). This is about capturing the essence of the photographic phenomenon. A motion photograph that speaks (like every photograph) of stillness. The direction of the so intense central plane moving towards the viewer contrasts with the backward direction of the other people, the trains disappearing into the depth of the image, and even the rain itself, canceling each other out so that the image of stillness, of freezing, is conveyed through motion. This composition uses as a counterweight the weary expression of the man, without allowing it a melodramatic dimension.
The geese with the man jumping in the background (Photograph 8). Here the photographer deviates slightly from his habits, but with what successful result! The photograph seems complex but is clear. The interwoven elements do not get confused. The seated man in the center connects the two background surfaces (wall and grass) with the diagonal figures (geese, man jumping in the air). These diagonals constitute the unexpected detail that the photographer knows how to discover, highlight, and bind with its opposite, namely the steady and calm presence of the central man who is indifferent to the unexpected, to "put" us with his gaze into the photograph.
The two boys in the middle of the fair (Photograph 9). Or how the photograph can emphasize the minimum within its frame. Thus, the essential power of form is proven. With the inversion of volumes, the viewer is led to detail. All the joy of the fair, all the playfulness, arising from the poor atmosphere of a village, does not emerge from the dancers in the foreground and background, but from the insignificant detail of the two boys playing in the center (one closing the eyes of the other). What no one notices becomes, for the photographer (and by extension for us), the symbol of joy and carefreeness.
The man with the butterfly (Photograph 10). Another one of Economopoulos's older photographs that has endured well over time. Here the photographer attempts a reverse focusing movement. He brings the detail forward to continue the reverse course backward. A kind of double "zooming." The butterfly (an insignificant stain on a person's clothing) occupies the center of our interest, followed by the man carrying it and the crowd in which the man would normally have been lost. This is an entirely different course from someone who would photograph focusing on a butterfly, per se, seated on a flower. The depth of field's clarity is responsible for this sense of reversal, as it does not limit us to the butterfly alone. The focusing of volumes is juxtaposed with the focusing of objects. An additional enchanting element is the gaze of the man, which introduces a counterweight to the presence of volumes and gives us another dimension. As if we are also looking from the front.
The smiling girl with the spread dress (Photograph 11). Within a realistic depiction, the photographer comes to point out that reality consists of surprises. The incredible "spread" of the dress occupies the image. The girl's smile responds to the inevitable smile of the photographer and the viewer. The second girl's movement adds dynamism to the image and secures its integration into the space. The non-static nature.
The embraced couple with the dolls on the wall (Photograph 12). A photograph both tender and utterly harsh. The people resemble the dolls. The dolls float like haunted people. The compressed levels of the photograph underscore the juxtaposition.
There are many more photographs of Economopoulos that one could classify in the above category. The man with the tambourine, the hand hanging from the broken window of the bus, the black-clad women with the little girl in the foreground, the man with the "snout" in the center of the photograph, the swing of the amusement park with the girl turning her back, and many more. There are also other interesting ones that use the frame of the image in a more complex way, with many abstract elements composing the whole. Photographs worthy like the man with the cap sitting on the edge of a wall with his shadow following the corner of the wall, the children looking at the lens and holding the photograph of a woman in their hands, the one with the child throwing the egg carton in the air, the one with the lyre player, the man lying on the cot and the man with the umbrella, the one with the dog in the middle and the half face of the child on the right, and many more. There are also some that prove the photographer's ability to operate with quality and with clear journalistic goals, where events are recorded in the strict sense. Like the photograph of the illegal immigrants on the ground, the one with the small UCK member in the foreground, the other with the crawling soldier in exercises, and a few more.
This latest album of Nikos Economopoulos, which gathers work of many years, helps us to ascertain his photographic obsessions, the way his gaze is drawn to the tender and enchanting details of everyday life, his readiness for the unexpected, his attention to the carefully staged scenes of spaces, all without the binding presence of a general thematic title, or the also restrictive submission to the needs of a journalistic article. This book is none other than the necessary stepping stone in the ascending trajectory of an important Greek photographer.
Plato Rivellis