LT:Good evening. Here at Lampater, we are on Nova life with Myrto Kontova. Tonight, we will present this show and we have a guest, a distinguished and beloved gentleman who is, a Lawyer? Possibly. Photographer? Possibly. Author? Possibly. Art theorist? Possibly. Is he all these things? Certainly, all these things. But his name is Mr. Plato Rivellis. Welcome, Mr. Rivellis.
PR:Hello.
MK:Good evening.
LT:How are you?
PR:With all these titles, quite well.
LT:You are here on the occasion of your book release, which is an album that includes mainly samples of your photographic work over the years, but also fundamental thoughts, considerations, and a bit from your biography and history, right?
MK:Are these your own writings?
PR:It's a way for me to present myself. It’s like introducing myself and instead of giving my hand, I give this book, this is me.
LT:A very nice job. Very nice texts and very nice photos. I knew about the photos. About the texts, I can honestly say I didn't know, but they are equally beautiful and I say this sincerely without any intention to flatter you. So, we will also have a photography lesson today. You have promised us that.
PR:Whatever you want.
LT:We will see some photos because it teaches. Where should I start now? From the lessons? Where do I start?
PR:If someone persistently asks me what my primary title is, the title that expresses me and that I love, it is teacher. A photography teacher. But even there, I still have doubts because they take away my right to say that I am a professor because I do not have the title of professor in any official institution. Just teacher scares me because it's like being Christ, I am the rabbi, something like that.
LT:Yes.
PR:When they say teacher what are you doing? I feel a bit of chills. But in reality, that's what I do. My main occupation and my greatest interest, I am a photography teacher.
LT:How many years have you been teaching photography?
PR:About 30.
LT:Is photography a technical art that is taught, or does the other have it in them to take beautiful photos or not?
PR:No art is only about having it inside you. What the youth say today, having it or not.
LT: Yes, not having it.
PR: Yes, not having it. You don't know if you have it.
LT: Yes.
PR: How you start is another matter. Everyone starts differently. I started out of love for art when I was a lawyer and wanted to do something related to art. And I had no particular passion for photography. I just mistakenly considered it more accessible, easier. Now, to learn piano, to paint, all that...
MK: Really? That's how you started?
PR: That's how I started.
MK: I see.
LT: And well, you left...
PR: I mean, no kidding, I didn't even have a camera. I borrowed cameras when I traveled. I just had an appreciation for photography and said I would get involved in what pleases me. It was initially a sideline to lawyering and gradually began to steal time, I was ashamed of the clients because I lied to them and was involved in photography and at some point to be consistent with myself I said end the lawyering, as much as we did it, it went well, we have time to live another life.
LT: For reasons of honor, you must take a series of photos from Themis, there at the courts and the like because at least you have left the benches.
PR: I had when I went with the lawyer's bag I put the camera inside hoping to do something but it doesn't work. You have to be dedicated to what you do.
MK: So you imagined that you would be photographing in the courts and?
PR: Okay, leave what I imagined. What I imagined...my desire was to break down what I was doing and thankfully I stopped lawyering in time not to destroy my clients.
MK: So you didn't like lawyering, you liked to be involved in art, simple.
LT: Not as much as
PR: I didn't like it, you said it very well. Just a young man who was starting at that time to practice a profession and had to go from a bourgeois family to university, had to, 10 schools were there? And many I say. Well, I would have liked perhaps philosophy but they grounded me that I have to earn my bread and I will earn it easier that way and I went to law. Who now has the mood to go to law? Normally a normal person does not know what law is. Or if he will enjoy it. From there it was a dictatorship, we got a mania with politics and I went to Paris to study political sciences. I didn't like that either. At least I had one good thing, I quickly understood what I don't like.
LT: Yes.
PR: It's harder what I like. And I started doing the lawyer which was a profession that was going well.
LT: That's a nice sentence to start with.... What you say that you quickly understood what you don't like, does it show in photography? I mean, when you go and do it, do you easily understand if it's worth getting involved or not?
PR: Now yes. I mean, one thing you gain over the years is not that you will easily take a good photo, you will have a harder time messing up. Because you can exclude. It's a big issue that we might need to address later. Because everyone has that. How they will judge, how they will choose. It's not about how much you shoot one subject or another.
LT: Now is photography a matter of technique? I mean, the better the camera I have...
PR: It is, the last thing that matters is the technique.
MK: So what characterizes a good photographer?
PR: The last thing. I mean, everyone today, especially with digital technology, is able to make technically excellent photography. I mean, I get dozens, I have thousands of students over these years, technically they were all fine. It's an easy thing.
MK: And it's also very much a part of our lives now, isn't it?
PR: And it's getting easier and easier.
MK: Easier and easier exactly.
PR: Easier and easier.
MK: And with mobile phones and all this technology we have.
LT: Tell me now, is it the frame, is it the eye, is it the moment, is it the aesthetics, is it the culture that everyone carries?
PR: If you told me one word I would say what you said, the frame. I mean, if we limited what photography is, I would say frame. Like, if we said what cinema is which is my second big love, my illicit love, it's the editing. It's which scene will be before and which will be after. The sequence of three scenes makes the cinema.
LT: But when you say what the frame is, the frame to be produced isn't it a result of the aesthetics, the culture, the education you have?
PR: And add...
PR: Everything. That's what's important in art. What you say I must have technique. Very nice. Why must you have technique? To forget it. To not have anxiety. That's gone. From there on aesthetics means nothing. Aesthetics have clothes, they have nice sweaters. Your childhood counts a lot. Your general culture counts a lot. Your character.
MK: How does your childhood count?
PR: It counts because it determines your psyche.
LT: You mean the memories?
PR: The memories.
MK: I see, that's what you mean.
PR: So, all these things... you can't every time you lift the camera say two minutes, childhood what does it say? What does philosophy say? These must have been done, we must have tied them together so much and they come out in a way you don't think about. Not spontaneously but underground. You took the photo. You took another 10, and now with digital, not 10,
LT: Yes, thirty, five hundred
PR: Thousands.
MK: Yes
PR: And it's free.
MK: Yes
PR: How do you distinguish them afterward? Again you must invoke, but this time rationally, intellectually all that you carry. That is, your culture, your character.
LT: Do you stage the photos?
PR: There is no unstaged photo. Let's clarify this so people know.
LT: Yes that's why. Are we doing a lesson now?
PR: Unfortunately...
LT: We will ask and you will answer.
PR: You see; I'm becoming a teacher again.
MK: That's okay.
LT: That's innate.
PR: I wanted to be a TV star and I became a teacher again.
LT: No no no, let's leave it, we have many stars, we don't have teachers.
PR: Yes...
LT: Sit down, you're doing just fine with the job you do.
PR: Look what's happening. The landscape of photography has changed a lot now. I enjoy it from one side but it demands much more. That is, all people are photographers. Good from one side.
LT: Potentially.
PR: Potentially.
MK: Yes, they are.
PR: Everyone can with a computer and a program do things that only the technical jackals used to do.
LT: Intervene in the photo with Photoshop.
PR: Everything. Whatever you want. That's not bad. But what does it ask for? It demands much greater knowledge from the photographer about what to do and whether to do it. That is, what I do today I was never any specialist, manic of technical, with the editing program, nor did I dream of it in the darkroom. I got bored in the darkroom. But I know why not to do it or when to do it.
MK: So you work with technology. That is, you process your photos on computers and the like, right?
PR: I would say that it makes no sense for anyone to say I don't work with technology. You have to be not just reactionary, you have to be stupid.
LT: But doesn't it lose a bit of its charm? That is, from the moment you put a color photo on the computer and you can make Myrto's hair from blonde to black, make her smile from nice to ugly, and so on, at the end of the day what we see will not be what you shot.
PR: It makes no sense... And who told you that I want you to see what I shot.
MK: Exactly.
PR: That is, you must see something else. The issue is exactly that.
LT: And what are we? The alibi subjects, that is? That is, the image here Myrto will be the alibi for you to make arbitrariness on her?
PR: You answer excellently. Excellently. All these things, they are absolutely correct.
LT: And why don't you paint then? Why do they call it photography then and we don't call it painter? Visual artist takes and carves such, why?
PR: Because it has, each photo has something that painting does not have, the conviction that this is alive and must remain that.
LT: The illusion...
PR: The illusion. The illusion. The verisimilitude. It must remain alive but you have, even if you are a spectator of something alive, the feeling that you are seeing something that does not exist outside of the photo. Let's put it another way. If I don't achieve a transformation, I haven't made a photo. I've made a very poor representation of something that in life is much better. That is, if I try to render Mrs. Kontova as beautiful as she is and do everything to be very close to her beauty she will always be more beautiful alive.
LT: Correct.
PR: So; what are you trying to do?
PR: I have to use it to do something else.
LT: In quotes Mr. Rivellis please.
PR: Clearly....
MK: Not me, I don't mind, and without quotes I like it.
PR: ...many quotes
LT: Are we laughing now? Let me tell you the...
PR: Change it.
LT: We're laughing too, right? Yes, yes
PR: If I try to change it. Bluntly, to put other hair on her, to make her fat, to put a distorting lens...
LT: Then we're talking about arbitrariness.
PR: Not at all. It's just a very poor way to do it. It's boring, it's obvious.
LT: Obvious
PR: Obvious
MK: But it could also be a proposal, isn't it?
PR: Such things have been done. Well, I get very bored with it. It must be constantly... to see and to say something is happening. Let's say now, don't take it literally. In this Mrs. Kontova who although she is beautiful is ugly.
MK: hmm
PR: While she is ugly, she is beautiful
MK: I can't imagine you mean that.
PR: That is, to create a contrast. To create tension. Otherwise, I don't want the photo.
LT: Correct. It would then go there to get an ID.
PR: Oh, well done.
MK: That is, to understand something.
PR: Now, let me interrupt, we've gone too deep and we started more calmly.
MK: Nice then let me ask you a simple question. The first thing I will learn if I come to you to learn photography, to come as a student. What exactly does a person who learns photography learn?
PR: Oooof. Can I put it bluntly?
LT: And to add what Myrto says that you said to create a tension, how is a tension created? Tell us that along with what is taught. We will finish tomorrow I know
PR: Mr. Tagmatarhis do we collaborate in the lessons? Your observations are very good.
LT: But I'm always interested...
PR: The audience will think, my students will think that we have spoken before while we have not.
LT: Not at all we haven't spoken. I really like photography but I can't manage this photographic camera at all. That is, I'm the most useless Greek person. With the apertures, and it's also automatic. It tells me to put it in this position and it will come out automatically. It doesn't produce anything.
PR: Let's take, let's go maybe even the audience listening to us will be happy if we tell them things they know. What is the problem today? That people are constantly photographing. You see constantly outstretched arms with a phone and photographing.
MK: Yes
PR: Another hysteria they upload them immediately on the internet
MK: On Instagram
LT: On Facebook
MK: Instagram. It's new.
PR: It doesn't matter. Four and a half billion photos...
MK: Isn't that nice though?
PR: Of course not.
LT: The vanity of people.
PR: No. Of course not. It makes no sense.
MK: I disagree.
PR: Well, the question is and from there we must start in today's era, not in 1850, why do you photograph. That is, you see a beautiful girl, you want to go eat with her and go home after. Do you have any reason to photograph her? But you must have that in your mind.
LT: Because if she leaves you later at least you have a photo.
PR: 2 minutes, that's a very correct thought, do it for that.
MK: But you don't photograph that. I tell you because I also photograph and upload on Facebook. I photograph the moment.
PR: Once, when Hadjidakis released the fourth he did something called a spiritual café, something like that and had invited me and two other photographers to talk about the nude. He had made a question with the humor that characterized him, says, "do you, Mr. Rivellis, photograph before or after?" Which was an apt observation. That is, whether it is before the sexual act or after the sexual act it will be a different approach.
LT: Nice question is that.
PR: The essence however is that it is not obvious to photograph everything around you. You will go crazy, you will develop schizophrenia. The dad who photographs the little girl at her birthday is very logical. Does he perform an act of paranoia, Perhaps even schizophrenic to hold the time. Isn't that so?
MK: Isn't that what photography is?
PR: Very nice. Up to there I understand. And we all started from there. All of us wanted to sit down on a trip, a nice moment, something that happened to us. The wedding. We don't photograph the divorce. It should because it's also interesting.
LT: Divorce is painful that's why we don't photograph it.
PR: Where does it spoil, where does the mayonnaise spoil? Because up to there all people are doing well. It spoils when someone tells you nice photo you make. Then you start taking sunsets, poppies, and you start taking something that is nice or important.
MK: Yes
PR: Think then two things to clarify, you said about the first lesson, and just that to understand you will have left gained. Think first that there is nothing like that intrinsically nice. What does nice mean?
MK: What does nice mean?
PR: Yes. That is. The whole world is nice, the whole world is nice.
LT: It's also subjective. For me, it is nice for you it is not.
PR: And very nice. And you see it nice that moment, you don't see it afterward, and so on.
LT: Correct.
PR: And the second thing is that if something is nice why should I photograph it; I will enjoy it, I will see it, I will...with my senses. I will fall on it
MK: Because I want to keep it Mr. Rivellis.
PR: But you don't keep
LT: To capture it
MK: Yes
PR: Yes but watch out. You don't keep something that is nice by making it a photo.
MK: Then why do we take photos?
PR: It is a kind of spiritual masturbation that you are trying to do.
MK: Then why does photography exist?
PR: We proceed then. The second thing that people do is, something important...
LT: Yes yes now answer that because it's very correct. Why does it exist?
PR: I'll get there, I'll get there.
LT: That's a big question.
PR: Now they go and say, something important. Okay, a flaming airplane falls, you caught it, well done.
MK: That's another discussion.
LT: Reportage
PR: Reportage
MK: Yes it's reportage, it's nice...
PR: There then, and in the very nice and the very important, life overtakes you. And there is no reason to take a photo, you will be a lost photographer. You will be a good photo reporter who simply will have shot something but as a photographer, you are zero. Think about all the great painting. Not to mention cinema. Almost nothing is important. The Mona Lisa is not very beautiful, the Demoiselles d'Avignon by Picasso is nothing nice. They have not painted something important. The most important films say nothing. That is if one thinks that an important film by De Sica is called Bicycle Thieves and is one who loses his bicycle and does not find it, well, it is not a subject for a film.
LT: Yes now you are opening huge issues here for terrific discussions. Continue not to interrupt you and I will tell you later.
PR: So, let's forget and say, as long as you are a dad and emotionally in an irrational way you try to trap your memory I understand it and it's very nice. When you start from there on to say not I will also take a photo that will be nice or important you fall into a terrible trap. Now, precisely because our era has a lot of photography, due to digital technology, and a plethora of photography that does not belong to us, that comes from outside, there are two very important questions that each of us must answer on our own. If I have helped as a teacher with my pleasure and joy. But everyone must have thought about it. Why to photograph. I came here, and like everyone I have a phone that takes photos. I have no reason entering the TV station to start taking photos. I must think why I photograph. The second, after I photographed to think why I will choose this photo of Mr. Tagmatarhis and not the other. There plays the role of the hierarchy of purposes. If I have to make him a mannequin I will say where he is prettier, and again what do I mean prettier; I mean according to the common acceptance of what a nice man means. Not what you say nice man. Because the men you liked are not those who are visibly nice they are those who have something else. Well...
MK: How do you know that?
PR: Because you are a normal person that's why, it's logical.
LT: We like not the visibly nice but...
PR: Those who have something else nice which we cannot say. Just as when you go to your mother and say, and she tells you why my child do you like Takis? And you say nonsense, he has nice eyes, while it's not that, you like him because he's a little bad, because he's a little twisted, because he's backwards but you can't tell your mother, well the same happens in art. There is something else which you know but you can't say. Therefore, the good thing with today's photography mania is that because it happens a lot it has lost the value it had in 1880 where whatever you saw was significant. Isn't that so? And whatever photo you saw.
MK: You know photography is also a very powerful means of communication.
PR: Is it?
MK: Isn't it?
PR: ....
MK: When we continuously photograph all the moments of our lives and upload them on all these Instagrams and on Facebook and everywhere, we do that, I do it because I want Lambis to see at that moment oh look where I am. Here, and I see this sunset, I see and drink this glass of wine.
PR: I disagree with that... I consider it extreme neurosis but not communication.
MK: Okay, yes. Someone could say that, I see it as an exaggeration... Meaning communication is to catch you, to talk to you, to see you, and I would say something else that I have told journalists and they are not pleased. Photojournalists. That I don't understand at all the value of photography in print. And they start to understand it abroad, but not yet in Greece.
MK: You mean the type of photojournalism photos?
PR: In magazines...
LT: You mean the reporting?
PR: The reporting.
MK: You need to now here...
LT: Well now yes, I must ask. Now I will go to the Chinese who say a picture is worth a thousand words.
PR: I say exactly the opposite.
LT: Meaning that often you see a photograph that you cannot describe with words.
PR: No.
LT: There are photographs that cannot be described.
PR: What you see in journalistic photography is one caption, so the photograph is the illustration of the topic or what you already expect with your mind made up to see.
MK: It depends on the photograph.
PR: When we talk about journalistic photography, we roughly know what we mean.
MK: Like Che Guevara dead doesn't need any caption, for example.
PR: There is no dead person in the photo...
LT: There are documentary photos, let's say.
PR: There is no document in the photo.
LT: Isn't there?
PR: No.
MK: How come there isn't.
LT: In the photo where the other kills the guy in Vietnam? He pulls out a gun and kills him?
PR: How do you know?
LT: Or the girl who is in front of the tank in Tiananmen Square?
PR: How do you know? How do you know? Remember...
LT: Of course, it might not be so?
PR: Of course. Remember a photograph that became....
LT: With the Americans raising the flag on this
PR: First of all that. But a famous photograph that also became a topic, foolishly became a topic, the photograph is not worth it, it is by Robert Capa, a democratic army guy in Spain doing this with his hand, a rifle flying out of his hand, that we are killing him at that time, and it has become a poster and the rest.
LT: I know the photograph...
PR: And at some point, they claimed that it was staged.
LT: It says WHY below but let me tell you...
PR: It says why.
LT: Let me tell you something; if we start the process of saying that this photograph yes that you know is not staged...
PR: But it is important.
LT: But then that applies to why you know that the text is correct or not?
PR: Because...
LT: The text goes a correspondent and writes now in Ukraine that it is not like this it's different.
PR: Very nice.
LT: Do we know? Are we there?
PR: No. But there you don't believe the photograph, you believe a person.
LT: Yes.
PR: If the person turns out to be a liar, then that journalist is a liar. If someone tells you I saw...
MK: Yes.
PR: ...someone who died in front of me from hunger in Africa.
MK: Yes.
PR: That is a testimony of the journalist which if it is nicely articulated can be shocking. A fallen person doesn't mean at all neither that he died, nor that he is in Africa, nor that he was starving.
MK: Agreed but...
PR: It is characteristic...
LT: Okay, let's not stay on this too long. Okay, we disagree on this.
MK: We disagree, we don't exactly disagree.
PR: I'll tell you something. First of all, if you look at the good print today in Europe, Le Monde, The Independent, The Guardian have all started and they no longer do photography that shows what the report says, they do something very different and abstract that just refers you to something else. They don't prove what the journalist says. For years photo reporters at Life Magazine were arguing with journalists, while journalists needed to have the last word. The word counts. Photography can't say what the word says, especially if we talk about abstract words. Because you mentioned the Chinese proverb. Fear, love say much more than a hundred photographs.
MK: Well, I'm surprised because you are a photographer.
LT: and you deconstruct the art.
MK: And you say that.
PR: But it is not art.
MK: I very much disagree anyway.
PR: Photography is misunderstood because they all combine it with its caption, with what it shows. I mean I have a photo of a tree, often, I like trees. And they tell me, where is that? It is a massacre. If you tell a photographer he commits harakiri on the spot.
MK: Why?
PR: Because it's like you're denying his photograph. The Photograph is nowhere, It is the photograph. The photograph on the book cover...
MK: Yes.
LT: Indeed.
PR: ...that's two trees and a rock. If I tell you, truthfully, that it is in Mycenae, you immediately carry...
LT: the memory, the history.
PR: what the word Mycenae carries. I'll tell you, it's not a lie but someone who sees a photograph won't see Mycenae. Now Mycenae worked for me who was there to take the photograph like that, but it isn't...
LT: now I'm confused I must tell you and I want to start the story from the beginning.
PR: but you put me in deep waters.
LT: but I didn't put you in deep waters but this is a big topic anyway about the use...
PR: but you see how much it teases people the photograph?
MK: it is very much, but it is what you say, a very everyday medium.
LT: when there is a concert and there are fifty thousand spectators at a concert and suddenly you see fifty thousand hands raised with a phone in hand taking a photograph or at a gathering in a square that is Istanbul because they have a demonstration or it is in Ukraine or it is in Syria or it is anywhere and there is... that means something. How do you interpret that?
PR: It means that we live in a neurotic and hysterical era, it doesn't please me at all, not at all...
MK: Really?
PR: ...not at all. I believe that these people are even losing the joy of the concert. At the concert, you dance, you sing, you bang, you don't take photographs. Because if you do this continuously in all the things you like I want to see in which erotic position of the Kama Sutra you will take out the camera. How will you interrupt...
MK: But you know now?
LT: This has a...
PR: I mean now we are talking nicely and because the three of us have gotten excited and are talking we will start photographing each other?
MK: No but you also describe an extreme situation. We don't mean...
PR: Isn't it extreme for all hands to be raised?
MK: Maybe to be raised...
LT: ...to take a photograph of your favorite band so you can have it and say I was there too, let's say, it may... it may hide a...
PR: Now then you say something interesting. You say I was there too. So the photograph doesn't function as a photograph, it doesn't have autonomy...
LT: like a hard disk of memory...
PR: ...for that, for that then. That's why it interests me when it functions as memory. But think a bit, we said now and you will see that in this book I deliberately have my own commemorative photographs.
LT: I've seen them. With your dad, your mom, at the piano, in front of the Christmas tree, I've seen them.
PR: deliberately to show that for me what counts is that photograph which is not a photograph of value but which counts for all of us. The photograph has the good, the bad I don't know yet, when I die I will conclude, it shrinks our memory while it holds it. If I ask you about your childhood you will find that perhaps your childhood has been limited to the family album. You remember very well the photographs you have seen and seen again of your dad, your mom and they may have ultimately replaced the memory.
LT: That's correct.
PR: So, the function of memory with photography interests me a lot. There is however a part that makes photography much more interesting, I discovered it too after I started taking photographs, that it exists on its own. That is while I show a tree, it is a tree, but in reality it is like that, that's why I said about the frame, because I transformed it. A photographer whom I love very much, was also my friend and teacher Garry Winogrand, unfortunately, he died, they asked him why do you photograph? The question I asked before and he says to see how things look when they are photographed. That is a terrifying phrase. That is, it's like telling you, everything changes. I don't know why. From the time I decide to take the picture of Mr. Colonel and I put around his face or his body or his legs four sides it becomes something else. I go beyond the topic Colonel. And especially there I am very decisive because think to put his face or not to put his face. To take only his hands and feet, of an unknown person, or to take only the head and not know what is happening below. That then... the fragmentation of the world, and that's why photography has something very important, you don't put inside the photograph, you throw out and make a photograph.
LT: That's correct too.
MK: You know.
LT: Right, right, right.
PR: That is, I have two people in front of me, if I put Colonel Kontovas in a photograph, first of all it is a man a woman, I don't know their relationship, I don't know where they are, I have cut them off from that world. They are already transformed, suddenly I put only Colonel and only the hand of a woman who I don't know. So the frame, that's why I said it, what I leave inside and have thrown out is very important.
MK: And it has to do with what you want to say obviously, isn't it?
PR: Every question opens...
MK: A comment.
LT: What you want to say is what we say and write?
PR: Do you think I know what I want to say?
MK: If you put only the arm, the hand of a woman and Lambis alone you want to say something else from putting another face next to it, isn't it?
PR: Exactly. What a person who makes creative photography not directed, what do I mean directed? Applied, commercial, there you know what you want to say. You photograph to show that the particular mayonnaise is good and you know what you will do to do it. I am searching what I want to say. That is, I am searching who I am. That I search when? After I photograph. That is, I photograph enjoying having you two "guinea pigs" in front of me, I play with you and the world and then I look and say what did I do? Who am I? And I choose.
MK: So you also know yourself through photography, isn't it?
PR: I search I do not know. And besides my initial desire was to release this book with a title that I have inside, a matter of identity. That is, a person until they die searches their identity. You don't know who you are.
MK: Yes.
PR: And if you distinguish it in some things, even in sexual preferences, and there you may have doubts until the end. You don't know. In this search photography helps a lot. Because you see the world, you cut it you transform it and then you look and say, what did I do? Why did I cut it? Why did I make it like that? You see your obsessions. And then you start and you make what we say in photography portfolio, that is a set of photographs that expresses you but you have the same surprise with the one who sees it because you from there that you are the creator suddenly you become a viewer of yourself.
LT: Don't you tell me; What is it that makes so many young people, not only young, so many people to attend courses, to search, there are special magazines, special bibliography, shops, a huge turnover of billions...
PR: ...around photography. First of all, photography, let's accept it I don't consider it either good or bad. Previously we said why not to go against. Because from the time there is something and it has the power of the current of a river I consider it foolish to go against. That is it has no meaning for me to say I will not do digital photography. Finished.
LT: Since everyone does.
PR: It's like saying how nice it was the washbasin that you washed it and you grabbed the cloth.
MK: But it was magical, wasn't it?
PR: It was but you don't wash in the washbasin anymore, it doesn't happen.
LT: Correct.
PR: you will be a bit of a snob. If you stay in that category yes. For me to sit now to discuss whether or not we should write on the computer, since we write on the computer the story is over. The issue is what are the weaknesses of writing on the computer, the cut and paste and all that, and to see how we will harness that. But not to deny it. So today we want to accept what is happening and go to correct it.
MK: Are there photographers who still work in the dark room?
PR: There are yes.
MK: Do you know such still?
PR: There were also in the past. I remember when I started photography there were some old fanatics who said we don't buy chemicals, we don't buy papers we make them ourselves. Okay, it has a bit of a folkloric element that.
LT: Okay, so we have to take a break a minute and right after he will guide us through the photos in all this that we discuss theoretically but of course we have to do fifteen broadcasts here because I haven't opened anything.
PR: I am here, if you want we do them.
LT: You are here but we have to do them because there are so many questions. That is, finally digital photography that entered phones, tablets, did it do good to society? Did it do good to photography? Did it do harm? What did it do? Tell us that and then...
MK: Can a good photo be taken with a mobile phone?
PR: Of course. With all it can. Why don't I recommend to my students to shoot with a mobile? Not for the result. Because when you shoot with a mobile you are usually not serious. That is, it's a bit of a joke.
LT: You're not focused let's say.
PR: You're not focused.
LT: Indeed.
PR: Photography requires tremendous concentration. That is not shooting randomly at Karagiozis' wedding. An hour neither you make company, nor you take a walk, you are alone. You are alone with the world. You are alone with what interests you. And then your eye ceases to see, it gets tired, the eye gets heavy, you need to drink coffee.
LT: Give us a minute. A minute you too and we return immediately.
LT: That's correct too.
MK: You know.
LT: Right, right, right.
PR: That is, I have two people in front of me, if I put Colonel Kontovas in a photograph, first of all it is a man a woman, I don't know their relationship, I don't know where they are, I have cut them off from that world. They are already transformed, suddenly I put only Colonel and only the hand of a woman who I don't know. So the frame, that's why I said it, what I leave inside and have thrown out is very important.
MK: And it has to do with what you want to say obviously, isn't it?
PR: Every question opens...
MK: A comment.
LT: What you want to say is what we say and write?
PR: Do you think I know what I want to say?
MK: If you put only the arm, the hand of a woman and Lambis alone you want to say something else from putting another face next to it, isn't it?
PR: Exactly. What a person who makes creative photography not directed, what do I mean directed? Applied, commercial, there you know what you want to say. You photograph to show that the particular mayonnaise is good and you know what you will do to do it. I am searching what I want to say. That is, I am searching who I am. That I search when? After I photograph. That is, I photograph enjoying having you two "guinea pigs" in front of me, I play with you and the world and then I look and say what did I do? Who am I? And I choose.
MK: So you also know yourself through photography, isn't it?
PR: I search I do not know. And besides my initial desire was to release this book with a title that I have inside, a matter of identity. That is, a person until they die searches their identity. You don't know who you are.
MK: Yes.
PR: And if you distinguish it in some things, even in sexual preferences, and there you may have doubts until the end. You don't know. In this search photography helps a lot. Because you see the world, you cut it you transform it and then you look and say, what did I do? Why did I cut it? Why did I make it like that? You see your obsessions. And then you start and you make what we say in photography portfolio, that is a set of photographs that expresses you but you have the same surprise with the one who sees it because you from there that you are the creator suddenly you become a viewer of yourself.
LT: Don't you tell me; What is it that makes so many young people, not only young, so many people to attend courses, to search, there are special magazines, special bibliography, shops, a huge turnover of billions...
PR: ...around photography. First of all, photography, let's accept it I don't consider it either good or bad. Previously we said why not to go against. Because from the time there is something and it has the power of the current of a river I consider it foolish to go against. That is it has no meaning for me to say I will not do digital photography. Finished.
LT: Since everyone does.
PR: It's like saying how nice it was the washbasin that you washed it and you grabbed the cloth.
MK: But it was magical, wasn't it?
PR: It was but you don't wash in the washbasin anymore, it doesn't happen.
LT: Correct.
PR: you will be a bit of a snob. If you stay in that category yes. For me to sit now to discuss whether or not we should write on the computer, since we write on the computer the story is over. The issue is what are the weaknesses of writing on the computer, the cut and paste and all that, and to see how we will harness that. But not to deny it. So today we want to accept what is happening and go to correct it.
MK: Are there photographers who still work in the dark room?
PR: There are yes.
MK: Do you know such still?
PR: There were also in the past. I remember when I started photography there were some old fanatics who said we don't buy chemicals, we don't buy papers we make them ourselves. Okay, it has a bit of a folkloric element that.
LT: I see.
PR: This doesn't take me further.
LT: Previously when you said that if I photograph Myrto I want to give the intensity of her face, how do you give the intensity to the face?
PR: Not the intensity of her face, I want to give my own intensity.
LT: How is that done?
PR: Because the portrait is something that fascinates us because we show people who we are also so we have something similar they have many tried to say...
MK: I didn't understand what you said
PR: I mean, a dog when it sees another dog in front of it greets it much more than seeing a chair or a cat. Because the dog is something of its own. When we suddenly instead of seeing chairs and trees see a person we are very pleased because it is familiar, it is something that us, like a mirror.
MK: Yes
PR: Like a mirror. But you don't have a reason to just take a person, you must make something of him. Otherwise, it's the identity photo the mannequin photo for the magazine. This then is Gary Cooper. This photo was taken by an outstanding photographer who did fashion in the best possible way, George Hoyningen Huene, and Gary Cooper is very nice too. We see an actor and we know absolutely nothing neither about Gary Cooper nor about the photographer and nor does the photo tell us beyond Gary Cooper. So here we have a photo of applied good quality with good technique and with very good performance. From there on, I'm not interested. That is, if I'm not interested in Gary Cooper or if I'm not interested in handsome men I'm not interested in the photo. Here we have a photographer, however, who goes to do something more and it's very obvious. It's a Japanese who lives in Paris, called Keichi Tahara and he has photographed famous people, here is Xenakis...
MK: Xenakis
PR: ...and tries to make a portrait that gives a little of Xenakis, because he was a mathematician and architect he has put...
LT: Compass
PR: ...tools and the like. He has made a technical mistake around on purpose. All his photos vignette as you see and presents various artists in a smarter way. This, let's go a step now better. This is Bill Brandt an Englishman who does the same but in a much more interesting way, this is Francis Bacon the great English painter. The space behind is a bit distorted to remind of Bacon's works, and Brandt has also made a series of famous artists in a very smart way. But Brandt who is a great photographer for me would not be so great if he stayed in this series of portraits because there it's hard to exceed the presence of the face. If we look at this photo, and here I will stay a little while, because this is a very great photographer and among other things she has a charm she is one of the first in the history of the medium that is Julia Margaret Cameron 1850-60 somewhere there. A housewife who was however a genius who loved painting, was influenced by painting and starts then and does her environment, her relatives, her children, her neighbors, and does them in a way that they all become heroes of a theatrical work of her own. If you see Cameron's photos then you say here I enter a cave of Alibaba which has various strange... these are her children, but who would photograph children like that; And these... now the intensity. Here you have, at the same moment you have the provocative element of tenderness you also have a taste of death. And it is clearly staged. She told the kids sit there. And if she hadn't said it the photo wouldn't have happened because then to take a photo it was necessary three minutes to sit still. So she told them don't move, touch your lips and yet she brought out this intensity.
MK: So you want to tell something with the photo, you want to... a story to say
PR: Today you have tired me because you make amazing observations. This thought is interesting. You don't want to tell, you want to describe with precision something that will tell. That is if I photograph you sitting like that in reality what have I photographed; Let's think about it. It's a bit silly for many people but let's think about it. A blonde woman, who I don't know if she is genuinely blonde or not, blonde though...
MK: Today you killed me
LT: Look at this photo
PR: Bravo. So, a blonde woman who holds her hands like this who I don't know if she's in Greece, if she's in another country, what job she does, what her life is, I don't know anything about her. And I'm not going to find out no matter how much I photograph her.
MK: But we're not interested in that information
PR: But she must create an intensity in the one who sees her. Not for the desire to take her phone number.
MK: You know though something; Where she works, where she is, and all that we're not interested in as information, but we are interested however to see if this woman you say, this face, this person is happy or not...
PR: No.
MK: ...or if she has a sadness from inside
PR: No. Let me answer you.
MK: That would be information that would interest me. Now if that...
PR: If we had the ability to be in the space where we do the lessons I would immediately take out a photo that a very great American Walker Evans took and has a peasant woman during the great crash in the '30s who is obviously poverty and she sits like this and looks at the lens and has a drawn face, hard and drawn and you say she will suffer this. In reality a writer who accompanied him had taken many photos, this woman was bursting with laughter. It made a big impression on her that someone was taking her photo. And Walker Evans told her please don't laugh and she tightened her lips so as not to laugh. And this tightening shows something else. So we're not interested at all if you're happy or unhappy, nor will I interrogate you nor psychoanalyze you, I want to take a photo. What is the issue; The photo that I will take and will show to Mr. Tagmatarchis without knowing you must make such an impression that he will not forget it. And this Paul Strand said. He says, a portrait is the photo of a stranger whose image I will never forget. That's it. Paul Strand is that.
PR: Look, a child you look at, you don't know if it's happy or angry or…
MK: It seems angry to me.
PR: You don't know.
LT: Nor what its origins are.
PR: But you don't know. You don't know. Not if it's unhappy or if they just woke it up.
LT: In the end, is photography also a deception?
PR: Huge. But all art is a deception.
MK: But this concerns artistic and staged photographs. That's what I wanted to ask you before about a photojournalist...
LT: This is a nice photograph.
PR: So, this one now, this one here,
LT: Nice, nice photograph this one
PR: This is from a very great…
LT: This one might be the best of all.
PR: This one is from a very great person named August Sander who photographed in a village in Germany in the '20s, '30s. This one, as the caption tells us, is a gypsy. But when I was giving lessons at Panteion because I didn't know how to examine them, the kids had no relation to photography, and I had told them to choose photographs and talk about them. When they chose Sander's, they wrote scripts. And a girl wrote a love letter to this gypsy. Beautiful letter, huge. Because she liked it. A photograph brings out things that are not the photograph. It brings out intensity. That's why I say the word intensity. This one here is again from Sander. Forget the caption I will tell you in a moment. What would we say about this photograph? Because it is very important you wouldn't say it's a nice photograph. What does nice mean? Neither is it a nice man. You would say it's strong, it has intensity.
LT: The jail, the hospital, or the army
PR: Well, he is a prisoner.
MK: A pained man.
PR: It has intensity. Art must have intensity. It shouldn't leave you flaccid. You should say, whoa! Something is happening. But I don't know what. Because if you know, it’s a letdown. You must ahh, stay breathless. This one is mine from a dance. And here I want to say the following. I used to shoot quite a few choreographies, in front is Dimitris Papaioannou, very, very young. Today, seeing it I say I was tough, I was capable, but the photograph does not satisfy me, it merely shows my capability. It doesn't bring something out in the photograph.
LT: What's wrong? I mean, what should it have?
MK: Yes, what?
PR: There is no mistake, it couldn't have come out. I did it, not being a professional, I did these on request, I did my job right. But I wasn't in it, look now. Here we have one, it's an amazing photograph. It's from Seydou Keita. He died a few years ago and now that he died he became famous. He was a photographer in Bamako in Mali, where they are now killing each other with the French, and at the station, he had a photography backdrop and photographed the people who went there. In an amazing way though because he was so pure that he wasn't the professional that we have in mind here anymore. Because he liked to have that wonderful dress flow, but the girl was proud of her shoe which she had bought with so much effort he simply told her to take it outside. So when I was moved by Keita...
LT: Very nice
PR: I must tell you that it is one of the nice moments
LT: Very tender is
PR: Very. The nice moments. A student of mine went to Africa, before he died of course, and went to find him and brought him a book of mine and says where do you know me from; He says a teacher of mine in Greece talks about you and he started crying. Because it seemed inconceivable to him that someone was talking about him. But this is the person without realizing it, because he was just trying to please the lady. He has an opinion and if you see, there it is important. In photography, we must see many photographs of the same to say, ahh now I understand what this photographer was searching for. If you see then the gypsy of Sander and the prisoner of Sander and the rest and the rest you start to see what he is doing.
LT: I see.
PR: This doesn't take me further.
LT: Previously when you said that if I photograph Myrto I want to give the intensity of her face, how do you give the intensity to the face?
PR: Not the intensity of her face, I want to give my own intensity.
LT: How is that done?
PR: Because the portrait is something that fascinates us because we show people who we are also so we have something similar they have many tried to say...
MK: I didn't understand what you said
PR: I mean, a dog when it sees another dog in front of it greets it much more than seeing a chair or a cat. Because the dog is something of its own. When we suddenly instead of seeing chairs and trees see a person we are very pleased because it is familiar, it is something that us, like a mirror.
MK: Yes
PR: Like a mirror. But you don't have a reason to just take a person, you must make something of him. Otherwise, it's the identity photo the mannequin photo for the magazine. This then is Gary Cooper. This photo was taken by an outstanding photographer who did fashion in the best possible way, George Hoyningen Huene, and Gary Cooper is very nice too. We see an actor and we know absolutely nothing neither about Gary Cooper nor about the photographer and nor does the photo tell us beyond Gary Cooper. So here we have a photo of applied good quality with good technique and with very good performance. From there on, I'm not interested. That is, if I'm not interested in Gary Cooper or if I'm not interested in handsome men I'm not interested in the photo. Here we have a photographer, however, who goes to do something more and it's very obvious. It's a Japanese who lives in Paris, called Keichi Tahara and he has photographed famous people, here is Xenakis...
MK: Xenakis
PR: ...and tries to make a portrait that gives a little of Xenakis, because he was a mathematician and architect he has put...
LT: Compass
PR: ...tools and the like. He has made a technical mistake around on purpose. All his photos vignette as you see and presents various artists in a smarter way. This, let's go a step now better. This is Bill Brandt an Englishman who does the same but in a much more interesting way, this is Francis Bacon the great English painter. The space behind is a bit distorted to remind of Bacon's works, and Brandt has also made a series of famous artists in a very smart way. But Brandt who is a great photographer for me would not be so great if he stayed in this series of portraits because there it's hard to exceed the presence of the face. If we look at this photo, and here I will stay a little while, because this is a very great photographer and among other things she has a charm she is one of the first in the history of the medium that is Julia Margaret Cameron 1850-60 somewhere there. A housewife who was however a genius who loved painting, was influenced by painting and starts then and does her environment, her relatives, her children, her neighbors, and does them in a way that they all become heroes of a theatrical work of her own. If you see Cameron's photos then you say here I enter a cave of Alibaba which has various strange... these are her children, but who would photograph children like that; And these... now the intensity. Here you have, at the same moment you have the provocative element of tenderness you also have a taste of death. And it is clearly staged. She told the kids sit there. And if she hadn't said it the photo wouldn't have happened because then to take a photo it was necessary three minutes to sit still. So she told them don't move, touch your lips and yet she brought out this intensity.
MK: So you want to tell something with the photo, you want to... a story to say
PR: Today you have tired me because you make amazing observations. This thought is interesting. You don't want to tell, you want to describe with precision something that will tell. That is if I photograph you sitting like that in reality what have I photographed; Let's think about it. It's a bit silly for many people but let's think about it. A blonde woman, who I don't know if she is genuinely blonde or not, blonde though...
MK: Today you killed me
LT: Look at this photo
PR: Bravo. So, a blonde woman who holds her hands like this who I don't know if she's in Greece, if she's in another country, what job she does, what her life is, I don't know anything about her. And I'm not going to find out no matter how much I photograph her.
MK: But we're not interested in that information
PR: But she must create an intensity in the one who sees her. Not for the desire to take her phone number.
MK: You know though something; Where she works, where she is, and all that we're not interested in as information, but we are interested however to see if this woman you say, this face, this person is happy or not...
PR: No.
MK: ...or if she has a sadness from inside
PR: No. Let me answer you.
LT: Don't you tell me; I have a kid who is 18 years old and if he came and told me dad I want to study photography, what would you tell him; Will you live from this thing; Does anyone live who today decides to study photography; The photographers who are...
PR: First of all, I don't believe that you study to live. Right? It's a madness that has happened that you must study something with the aim to become a professional. How you will make your bread is something else with what will make you wake up happy in the morning.
LT: Correct.
MK: Correct but...
PR: When they told me, when they told me, I was previously in various schools and they told me to do professional orientation as soon as I did they kicked me out.
MK: Why?
PR: Because I told them do anything and leave it. Something that no parent says. They say you're not serious, you must do one thing and do it... do anything and leave it. Fall in love and break up. Don't have the feeling that what you do is the only and unique thing and you will have it all your life. That is, try to live and you will see what you will do. What they do to children is criminal, Go to school to become a scientist to make money to become great for, for. Life is great.
MK: But they do that anyway
LT: Kids do you have?
PR: No. And that's why I am very stingy in what I say and moreover in an article I had written many years ago I say forgive me that I don't have children. I don't know what I would have done. But…
MK: Why?
LT: Because when you have, you have the ability those things you say to do...
PR: To say nonsense...
LT: No no
PR: Yes
LT: Allow me. What you say is very right. I totally agree with me but it's as if we say this is very good in theory but in practice, things change.
PR: You know what I had written once and some parents called me and thanked me. An article and I said I don't have children but if I had I believe that I could only do one thing for them, nothing else. Every morning they wake up to tell them I love you and bravo. Nothing else. That is, to show them that I am here and I love you and that I trust you.
MK: Don't you consider yourself
LT: Let's tell him both together we love you and bravo and we leave.
MK: No, I want to ask something
LT: Come on, come on, come on
MK: Last, last. You had the luxury of what you love...
PR: Two minutes, two minutes, two minutes...
MK: Half...
PR: Let's stay a little in luxury
MK: The luxury. Because I say it. Because we discussed all that we said before. But you had the luxury of being guided by a dad and a mom, people who could think and tell you you will earn your bread with law. And what you love though and what it, how to say it is the first in your life...
PR: My parents you know what they told me when I didn't know where to go to school and I had to then change, just then it became classic practice
LT: Yes
PR: And I had no idea. And my father tells me, whatever you think my child, you will do it well. Trust is very important. Not to tell the child what to do.
MK: I agree with that.
PR: To show him, whatever you do you will do well. That yes. That then was a, and now I accept the word luxury, huge luxury in my life. And what I mention in this book is that, I don't dedicate it to my parents because I have dedicated others.
MK: You have dedicated it to your students.
PR: To the students. I owe them, to my parents, that they made me free not that they gave me money. There was no money at home. Nor that, and that they gave me a cultured environment. That is, not education, the environment at home.
LT: Culture.
PR: Culture.
LT: Civilization. Well, we must thank you because they are calling
PR: They are calling. this is how shows must end, to remain in the middle.
LT: To remain in the middle.
PR: Never to be completed
LT: So we can do them again, to continue them. Well, we hope it was enlightening and interesting the discussion
PR: I didn't realize how the time passed with you.
MK: Us too
PR: You are excellent in this job
MK: Thank you very much
LT: I don't know how much we enlightened you about photography. Tell me your relationship with light. What is light for you?
PR: Nothing, it's just a tool, light is...
LT: You mean when you see the sunset at night or the dawn in the morning you say a tool;
PR: Yes. I don't care if I go morning or night
MK: Wow you disappoint us.
PR: I make my own light
LT: Incredible, isn't he?
MK: Yes yes
PR: I make my light. That is, have you heard of American night in the movies when you don't want to have night scenes and to pay overtime you put a filter on the lights and you make it night.
MK: Well hasn't it ever happened to wake up as Lambis says and say this morning light I want to capture it;
PR: No no, in the morning I want coffee, croissant, and the like.
LT: Is there a photograph you didn't take? Lost photograph; That is, a photograph that you say now to have a camera here
PR: There isn't. This is another conception...
MK: Are you cynical? Very cynical.
PR: Cynical me?
MK: Well now.
PR: I live in a world of magic. I firmly believe what Pasolini said that if one morning you wake up and nature seems natural to you, you're finished. Everything must seem magical to you.
LT: That's good, let's stay with that.
PR: Yes
LT: Good evening
MK: Goodnight
LT: Mr. Rivellis thank you very much
PR: I thank you.
LT: And thank you very much for watching this discussion. Goodbye