Photo Album

1^stedition , 2011

Pages 168

150 Black & White Photographs

Dimensions 22Χ24

Photohoros publications

"Andreas Schoinas - Photographs"

Prologue

Andreas Schoinas' Photographs, or the World as a Courtyard of Miracles

Andreas Schoinas and I have known each other well for the past twenty-five years. He was my student. He was and still is my most constant collaborator. I appreciate and admire him. And yet he remains enigmatic, even to me. I have therefore concluded that the mystery of his personality is partly responsible for the extraordinarily multi-facetted - and only seemingly simple - photographs he takes.

Andreas has often given me the impression that he lives hermetically in a world all his own, as if he were no more than a guest in the world which the rest of us inhabit. He successfully adopts the social behaviour displayed by his environment, but in the end he always obeys his own moral and social code. Now and again, this makes it seem as if he were from a different time and place. He always adapts but never lets himself be absorbed.

He is characterized by endless contradictions. And above all, the same is true of the way he looks. Just like a comic strip hero, Andreas is ageless. He is sixty years old now, but his behaviour could easily lead one to think he was many years younger. He feels just as much at ease at a nursery school as he does in a retirement home. He is equally comfortable playing with little children and conversing with the elderly. He doesn't really belong anywhere. Neither in Nikaia (in Piraeus, he would hasten to add), where he was born and raised, nor in Kolonaki, where he has been working for thirty years, neither to left-wing politics, the leading political persuasion in his neighborhood and presumably of his friends who live there, nor to the political right, which his family voted for. Perhaps he only belongs to the Olympiakos football team, his great passion in life, although he avoids going to the stadium to watch their games, for fear he might see them lose. Just as he adores rock music and is a great collector of vinyl records, which he keeps in pristine condition in their plastic covers, making sure they will never get scratched. Or just as he listens to Bach's St. Matthew's Passion over and over again, which moves him deeply, but refuses to hear any analysis or discussion of it whatsoever.

There is no doubt, though, that Andreas Schoinas belongs to photography. But even this is something that he would seem to question, at least initially, just as he did many years ago, when someone stopped by the "Photography Circle" and asked him if he was a photographer, which he hastened to deny. Despite the fact that he had already compiled a body of personal work, had had a few exhibitions, published two small books and worked at our photography association, while at the same time making his living by taking pictures at weddings. Perhaps it was because he felt that photography was something so significant that he did not have the right to invoke it.

He always admired the great photographers with immense respect and humility. That is why he once requested the permission of Josef Koudelka, who was visiting the "Circle" at the time, to take his photograph - permission which was not granted, since Koudelka presumably did not realize that there were no commercial intentions attached to Andreas' request, but rather that it was nothing other than his way of expressing his admiration. And indeed, how else can a photographer do so? It is precisely the same as what Andreas did a few years earlier during a performance of Haendel's Saul we attended together in London, conducted by John Eliot Gardiner, when he lifted his camera up from where we were seated and took one single picture of the stage, which he hung in his room. Or when Bernard Plossu visited the "Circle" and Andreas gave him a handmade album bound in red leather, and the gracious French photographer accepted it thinking at first that it was a gift containing photographs by Andreas himself. How great was his surprise when he realized that this was an album containing the photographs by Plossu himself which Andreas loved best, along with pictures of the photographer and biographical notes. A photographic tribute.

The last, although not the ultimate contradiction is the fact that ever since he began to take photographs, Andreas Schoinas has almost instinctively established his own personal style, as well as a range of themes, which is wide but at the same time specific in direction, while his dream was always to photograph nudes and fashion.

Andreas' photographic point of departure was nothing out of the ordinary. He loved photography as an amateur and wanted to take a few lessons in order to improve. When, all of a sudden, the seminars at the "Photography Circle" introduced him to the work of the great photographers, this was decisive for him. I admired his work from the very beginning and valued him as a person, and therefore offered him a job as an employee, at first at the "Photohoros" shop and subsequently with our newly founded association, the "Photography Circle", of which Andreas has been a member since its inception in 1988, serving as treasurer on its Administrative Board. By virtue of this job, he was in constant contact with good photography, without ever reaching or even coming close to the remuneration of any of the well-known professional photographers.

At the "Photography Circle", Andreas became responsible for the darkroom, so that on a daily basis he experienced the work of young photographers, to whom he offered advice and guidance. At the same time, since keeping the vast library at the "Circle" in order kept him constantly busy, Andreas was in touch with the work of the famous photographers at all times.

Andreas' work at the "Circle" never kept him from pursuing his own personal photography, even though this was a very real danger, since the stimulation and satisfaction derived from being in touch with the photography of the famous and the young can easily become an excuse to avoid confronting one's own photography and oneself. For Andreas, though, this occupation was one of his greatest pleasures in life. Every day on his way from home to work, he could not stop taking photographs. On certain specific national and religious holidays, Andreas visited streets, churches and fairs. And even during the "Circle's" summer seminars on the Greek islands, Andreas took more frequent and numerous photographs than the participants themselves, despite his workload. On a daily basis, his own neighbourhood was also one of his consistent and favourite themes. Even though, apart from his subjects, to whom he always graciously gave his photographs as a gift, his neighbours and friends presumably knew nothing of his passion and photographic prowess. Andreas likes to keep things separate - to each his own.

Some years ago, Andreas began to supplement his income by working as a professional photographer at weddings and christenings, which is not at all glamorous (and looked down on by many). And yet, in this area, too, Andreas soon succeeded in creating and imposing his own personal style, which is eminently suited to his photography and his character. He must be one of the very few wedding photographers who gives the bride and groom a gift. Andreas has always regarded himself as being invited to share a sacrament. He must also be one of the few wedding photographers who do not take pictures during the reading from the Gospel. And who is deeply familiar with church procedure and the mentality of priests. Finally, he also knows how to separate the professional aspect of wedding photography from the aspect which concerns himself. Because naturally, it would be impossible for Andreas to remain inactive in the midst of the great celebration which every wedding is. Thus, as soon as the church service is over and the obligatory family pictures have been taken, when everyone has begun to relax during the subsequent reception, Andreas changes hats and wears the one representing his own kind of photography, connecting to everything he has seen on the streets of Nikaia, at parades and in churches.

Andreas has a great gift, which is not related to his skills as a photographer, but rather to his personality. His presence does not frighten others. And therefore everyone trusts him and relaxes in front of his lens. Be they young or old, rich or poor, Greeks or foreigners, beautiful, plain or ugly. He also has the ability and genius - and this time I am referring to photographical virtues - to always create (even in his comparatively most insignificant photographs) an interesting frame and a robust, yet - and this I emphasize - discreet form. A form which never, ever intervenes in order to unsettle its content, but which is always present. The plethora of minor happenings included in his photographs disappears in the presence of the main photographic event, born from the intervention of his frame. And the spectator always has the feeling of being guided by the photographer to the crucial point which this photographic event constitutes. However, it is a misleading feeling, because the details which make up the photograph were, and still are, constantly present, the only difference being that they are never conspicuous. Thus, a complex photograph always looks as if it were nothing but a simple record. What happens to form, though, has its counterpart in content. The laughter usually prompted by Andreas Schoinas' photography is but its doorway. A more thorough examination thereof will simultaneously - or on a second level - uncover what is at times sadness, at times compassion and at times irony. The children in Andreas' photographs are always alone. The couples are always embracing. The elderly people never look disgusting or pathetic, but rather tender. The prim and proper are often uninhibited, while the destitute and the insane are unexpectedly serious.

Andreas' world is the most ordinary of worlds to be found within contemporary Greek reality. Orthodox priests, festivities and weddings, football, religious litanies and ceremonies. Nevertheless, we have the constant impression that Andreas sees things which do not exist and presents events which never happened. And yet, his gaze has learned to transcend the obvious and his frame to bring out the commonplace. His lens is like a stage spotlight, emphasizing and underlining what the gaze of the average spectator is no longer able to distinguish.

Andreas is true to black and white. Only his professional photographs of weddings and christenings are in colour, thus ensuring a further distinction between his day job and his personal creative work. However, Andreas' black and white is never that of paintings. It is more of a question of character than of aesthetic choice. Andreas does not care for noise, hubbub, disarray or tension. Thus, his prints avoid even the slightest exaggeration of contrast, which is neither overly hard nor overly soft. Even the flash he is often required to use does not create the marked shadows it usually does. To Andreas, photographs must describe with the greatest possible discretion and the greatest attainable credibility. So that in the end, the surprise and emotion they will cause in the best of cases will not be due to interventions on paper visible to the naked eye, but rather to an allusive mediation of the frame.

His hand-operated Nikon with its 35mm lens had become an extension of his gaze. I hope that the unavoidable switch to digital Nikons and to the equally unavoidable zoom lenses do not mislead Andreas' eyes with their charm and ease, unless, by shaking him up, they give rise to something new, which could only be anything but dull.

Andreas' curiosity often made him turn to other photographic themes, different from those which bring out the quality of his work and his style. As a result, he made many portraits, and even photographed landscapes and objects. This was always high-quality work, but in my opinion it did not bear its hallmark, which transcends his photographic skills and knowledge, touching his character and personality.

Therefore, this book is a compilation of his photographs taken over the past twenty-five years, either at wedding receptions or within the confined world of his neighbourhood, or of babies, orthodox priests and elderly people - in short, of his very own world. Selecting them was no easy job, and it may well turn out that some choices were mistaken and most certainly that much is missing, considering that in all of these years, never a week went by in which Andreas did not present me with yet another packet of photographs to choose from.

I do not know if it would be possible to describe the content of these photographs with one single word. Could they be called humanist photographs? Do they convey Andreas' love for people and the joy he derives from life? Do they express their relation to those they portray? We cannot know for sure. For the power of these photographs lies in their contradictions. This is also one of the reasons why they would be inappropriate for professional use calling for unequivocal information.

There can be no doubt that Andreas approaches his subjects lovingly. At the same time, though, he uncovers their weaknesses, so that the joy on the surface is complemented, without being overshadowed, by the sadness hidden in the background. Andreas' world, no matter where it comes from, has all the nuances of an unusual Courtyard of Miracles[1]. The children are more serious than one would expect and always desperately alone. The priests play a more important role as symbols and faces of a society than as religious officials. The poor in spirit and the poor in goods are the brothers of the others, the bourgeois and the wealthy. But what we see could never be this complex and dense without Andreas' unusual sense of humour, which is not sarcastic like Winogrand's, nor hard like Arbus'. It is Andreas' very own laughter, and perhaps ultimately, more than the individuals in his pictures themselves, he loves their craziness, their quirks, and even their wretchedness. This is why people trust him, because in his gaze they recognize the tolerance, understanding and tenderness he himself feels for this world, which to him consists of every one of us, of everybody.

And as always, Andreas has no other way of showing his interest, his affection and his humour toward others than through photography, which he loves dearly and to which, whether he knows it or not, he belongs entirely.

Platon Rivellis

[1] The Courtyard of Miracles (Η Αυλή των Θαυμάτων) is a 1957 drama by Greek playwright Iakovos Kambanellis, which became a striking paradigm for the social fermentation in the late 1950s.