In December 2009 we got the first snow of the year in Stockholm. It was an intense snowstorm and in a few hours streets were full of snow. I went to see some friends and on my way back I slipped on the snow and got a very bad fracture in my lower leg. 6 hours of operation, metal bars and screws in my leg, and 2 months in bed was the result. After that I started going again, slowly, me who was always running to go somewhere, not to lose time. My vision changed in some magic way and it was a couple of months after that I started seriously with photography.

For 4-5 years after that, every time it snowed, I was getting panic attacks. I was afraid to go out walking or if I did, I always used spikes under my shoes, like the elderly people here in Sweden usually do Going for photowalks in the snow was out of the question.

In some magic way all this changed the last 8-9 years. I started getting comfortable with snow again, leaving the shoe spikes home, taking my camera with me. Sad fact is that the last 8-9 years snow in Stockholm became more rare. Which results to a slow ongoing project, but there is no hurry.

Looking back at that unlucky day in December 2009, lying 15 min alone on the street until some people found me, getting picked by the ambulance with a super weak blood pressure, it was the last thing in the world I would expect then, to be happy 15 years after to thank the snow. For bringing photography in my life.

Thank you snow. Thank you universe.

(viewed best if you click on the first diptych, a new window pops up and you can enjoy them separately)

“Goodbye,” he said.

“Goodbye,” said the fox. “And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

“What is essential is invisible to the eye,” the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.

“It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.”

“It is the time I have wasted for my rose–” said the little prince, so that he would be sure to remember.

“Men have forgotten this truth,” said the fox. “But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose . . .”

“I am responsible for my rose,” the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery, “The little prince”

This is an old-fashioned and formal way of saying goodbye to someone, but it’s still in use today. Use it when you won’t be seeing the recipient for a long time or ever again.

A bitter-sweet-bitter set

A chopped tree. Or a fallen tree. Sometimes life can feel this way. But usually the roots and the lowest part of the trunk stay in place. A fact that can get reflected in human life too, with any interpretation that might be given.

I came across this quote which I think completes my above mentioned thoughts in a beautiful way:

“The tree is more than first a seed, then a stem, then a living trunk, and then dead timber. The tree is a slow, enduring force straining to win the sky.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

A set of photos as a tribute to my father who recently died at the age of 76 and third age in general and my thoughts regarding all this.

On the 5th of April 2004, exactly 20 years ago, I moved to Sweden and started a PhD in Rheumatology, with the aim of staying and working as a clinician afterwards. Looking back at those 20 years and my life here in Sweden, I can only say a big thank you. I have a dream job in the most prominent University Hospital of the country. I have enough free time to develop myself as a person. I got a father and the laws of Sweden gave me such amounts of parental time that I could not even have dreamed of. I traveled the world in these 20 years, my eyes and thinking opened. And I discovered photography and developed as a photographer with the support of my wife and my bosses at work.

Along the way I realised that my big passion in life is photography. I decided though to keep my job, because it brings food on the table and lets me deal with my passion in an economically independent way.

I don’t know if I will live in Sweden for much longer, but I will never forget those 20 years.

This set of photos is an artistic recollection of some of the most important moments of my life in Sweden.

In March 2014, our baby boy was born two and a half months premature. A period of 2 months in hospital followed, full of uncertainty. This series of photos refers to the fight of a little human for existence in modern times, times of the machines. It refers to a mother fighting next to her baby, for her baby. And it refers to something we got introduced to in such a traumatic way, the miracle of a newly built family.

A set of photos from my travels in Crete, the place I call home, in the last decade. Portraits of my closest people there.

The circle is a universal symbol with extensive meaning. It represents the notions of totality, wholeness, original perfection, the Self, the infinite, eternity, timelessness, all cyclic movement, God (‘God is a circle whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere’). As the sun, it is masculine power; as the soul and as encircling waters, it is the feminine maternal principle. “It implies an idea of movement, and symbolizes the cycle of time, the perpetual motion of everything that moves, the planets’ journey around the sun (the circle of the zodiac), the great rhythm of the universe. The circle is also zero in our system of numbering, and symbolizes potential, or the embryo. It has a magical value as a protective agent, … and indicates the end of the process of individuation, of striving towards a psychic wholeness and self-realization.

Back in August 2012 I left home for a 4 months’ trip in India in order to improve as a photographer. I was by then a devoted beginner, with 2 years’ experience as a photographer. And I was by then just amazed by strictly street photography.

Just before leaving to India I attended my first ever workshop, in Heraklion, Crete, led by now a good friend, Lukas Vasilikos. The workshop was about artistic photography in general. It changed totally my perspective about photography.

I went to India and for the first time, except practicing street photography which I was very much in love with, I started getting advantage of my encounters with people during my travel. Could be friends in a hotel room, or a person I met randomly on the street.

The most wonderful thing when I was doing all these portraits is that when I succeeded taking the photo that satisfied me, I had the chance to share it with all these persons and I was able to thank them.

Thank you Lukas. This was a great timing. The day after the workshop finished, I was flying to India. Just a coincidence? I doubt.

Back in 2012 I visited India for 4 months in order to practice photography. The unlimited photographic possibilities that India offers was the main reason I chose it as my photographic destination. Living 4 months there though did not just have a photographic impact on me. I had the chance to experience life in a country dominated by various problems and mainly poverty. A country and people dreaming of a change. But on the same time following religious traditions that are thousands year old. A country of contradictions. And a country of beautiful people, that are shaped by all the aforementioned facts. This set of photos tries to explore all the impressions that India made to me and all the thoughts that were created during my visit there.

‘To sleep, perchance to dream’ is a line in probably the most famous section of ‘Hamlet’. In other words, if death is but a sleep, and dying is just like falling asleep, then perhaps (‘perchance’) we will dream after death. This set of photos tries to explore this possibility.

At the age of 7 I was attacked by my best friend’s huge shepherd dog. A long lasting phobia started then. I would always feel fear in the proximity of any dog. They say that dogs smell your fear and I completely agree with that. At the age of 33 and while in Andaman islands, India, I was again attacked by a huge dog. Still remember the dog’s teeth entering my flesh. Luckily no artery was damaged so I made it.

Coming back from that India trip, I made a new friend, Orestis, who had a black Labrador, Fidel. The most loving creature I ever met. It was the first time I felt I want to play with a dog. Fidel took a lot of my fear away. And he prepared me for another big challenge. My trip back to India in 2012 for 4 months, being among thousands of stray dogs. I obviously needed so much to be in India and make photos, that I could survive my fear for dogs. But I still remember that every time I passed close to a dog I was holding my breath, to hold the ‘’fear particles’’ inside me, so that it would not smell my fear

Being now 45, I have succeeded being comfortable with most domestic dogs. Stray dogs still give me high heart rate and not only, especially when I meet them in groups. I have not been back to India since 2014 and it is one of the main reasons.

Fear can not change though the fact that I consider them lovely animals. And I look forward to more dog photos in the years to come.

noun: shadow; plural noun: shadows

1. a dark area or shape produced by a body coming between rays of light and a surface

2. used in reference to proximity, ominous oppressiveness, or sadness and gloom

3. an inseparable attendant or companion