p.giannakis
Pan Giannakis
Bourtzi Fortess in the city of Nafplion - May 1999
Praktica BMS - Kodak Ektachrome Elite
Praktica BMS - Kodak Ektachrome Elite
p.giannakis
Pan Giannakis
July 1998
Kodak Ektachrome Elite 100
Canon EOS-5
Kodak Ektachrome Elite 100
Canon EOS-5
Archiver
Veteran
I'm so envious of your photos. As I said before, there are swathes of my life which are photographically undocumented. Even a major trip overseas, which was big for our family, didn't have the photography one would expect. I make up for it now by documenting just about everything I do and everywhere I go, but those earlier years can never be regained. Now I'll continue to look at your photographs, marvel at their reach, and imagine what mine could have been.
S
Stelios
Guest
You sure did travel a lot back then.
p.giannakis
Pan Giannakis
Thank you so much Archiver, I know what you mean, I wish I had photographed my parents more when they were alive.
Yes, I can't complain. It was easy back then then, all I had to do was take my camera and jump on the bus.
p.giannakis
Pan Giannakis
Island of Aigina - Summer 1999
Kodak Ektachrome Elite 100
Kodak Ektachrome Elite 100
p.giannakis
Pan Giannakis
This is probably my favourite picture i ever took.
Late July 1994, a bored teenager with a walkman on my ears and a camera with tripod around my shoulders. I went for a long walk, late afternoon to kill some time - there was no TV or internet and no kids my age to hand around with.
I remember my excitement when i saw this picture - it was the first picture i ever took and i *actually liked it*. And i still do.
I made a Cibachrome print to send it to the photography magazine i was reading at that time but eventually i shyed away. Bloody hell, Cibachrome was so expensive!
Ektachrome Elite 100 and Praktica BMS with the standard Prakticar 50f/.17
Late July 1994, a bored teenager with a walkman on my ears and a camera with tripod around my shoulders. I went for a long walk, late afternoon to kill some time - there was no TV or internet and no kids my age to hand around with.
I remember my excitement when i saw this picture - it was the first picture i ever took and i *actually liked it*. And i still do.
I made a Cibachrome print to send it to the photography magazine i was reading at that time but eventually i shyed away. Bloody hell, Cibachrome was so expensive!
Ektachrome Elite 100 and Praktica BMS with the standard Prakticar 50f/.17
p.giannakis
Pan Giannakis
A few pictures from the carnival in the city of Patras.
February 1999
February 1999
DownUnder
Nikon Nomad
Your Ektachrome slides have lasted better than mine.
Alas, most of the E6 I took after 1988 (when I took leave of my senses and "abandoned" Kodachrome due to too high costs) shows some color shifts. All still fixable with careful scanning, but oh my, all that work.
Now I wish I had bitten the bullet and not gone into cheapskate mode and paid the premium for Kodachrome. But in those days I was more fixated on gear than film, which I now regret.
So there you were in the '90s, with your Praktika, out and about, photographing all those superb images. Good on you!
Your street shots of Patras in 1999 are to me moments of history of great value. I looked at those and thought, how many others were there that day, and took similar photos, how many of those have survived, or who even remembers? What of all the people who appear in them? Young girls are most likely now well on their way to being grandmothers. All the older people would no longer be alive. The clothes, the costumes, the floats, what of those? Sent off to the dust bins.
I get this same feeling when I look at very early Hollywood or European films (1910s-1920s) on YouTube. The actors who were then in their most glorious youth or in their adult prime are long deceased. Clothing, furnishings, decor, what of them? No longer existing. What remains of it all? Maybe one or two items of jewelry, a clock, a fancy chair or another odd piece of furniture. The rest, gone. Only the images remain.
Similarly, I have in my archives, a photo of my maternal grandparents, formally dressed and very stiffly posing for an itinerant photographer on the day of their wedding in eastern Canada in 1914, so 110 years ago. When my grandpa passed away at age 100, an aunt who had lived with them and basically took over everything of theirs,decided she would sell it in a box of things going to an old wares shop. Incensed, I bit my tongue and gave her $10 for it. It's now on the wall of my study at home in Australia. I have several hundred family images - like you Pan, how I wish I had taken more of my kinfolk when they were still around and available for posing - but it's only family photo I have ever displayed.. in my home.
Interesting that an old photograph taken half a world away well over a century ago, now reposes in an elegant glassed gilt frame on a wall in a house in a country my grandparents would never have thought of. But there it is.
Alas, most of the E6 I took after 1988 (when I took leave of my senses and "abandoned" Kodachrome due to too high costs) shows some color shifts. All still fixable with careful scanning, but oh my, all that work.
Now I wish I had bitten the bullet and not gone into cheapskate mode and paid the premium for Kodachrome. But in those days I was more fixated on gear than film, which I now regret.
So there you were in the '90s, with your Praktika, out and about, photographing all those superb images. Good on you!
Your street shots of Patras in 1999 are to me moments of history of great value. I looked at those and thought, how many others were there that day, and took similar photos, how many of those have survived, or who even remembers? What of all the people who appear in them? Young girls are most likely now well on their way to being grandmothers. All the older people would no longer be alive. The clothes, the costumes, the floats, what of those? Sent off to the dust bins.
I get this same feeling when I look at very early Hollywood or European films (1910s-1920s) on YouTube. The actors who were then in their most glorious youth or in their adult prime are long deceased. Clothing, furnishings, decor, what of them? No longer existing. What remains of it all? Maybe one or two items of jewelry, a clock, a fancy chair or another odd piece of furniture. The rest, gone. Only the images remain.
Similarly, I have in my archives, a photo of my maternal grandparents, formally dressed and very stiffly posing for an itinerant photographer on the day of their wedding in eastern Canada in 1914, so 110 years ago. When my grandpa passed away at age 100, an aunt who had lived with them and basically took over everything of theirs,decided she would sell it in a box of things going to an old wares shop. Incensed, I bit my tongue and gave her $10 for it. It's now on the wall of my study at home in Australia. I have several hundred family images - like you Pan, how I wish I had taken more of my kinfolk when they were still around and available for posing - but it's only family photo I have ever displayed.. in my home.
Interesting that an old photograph taken half a world away well over a century ago, now reposes in an elegant glassed gilt frame on a wall in a house in a country my grandparents would never have thought of. But there it is.
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S
Stelios
Guest
Very close. I was there in the early 2000s. My pictures are not this good.
p.giannakis
Pan Giannakis
I was there in 2000 too but no pictures from that trip. It was raining all day.
p.giannakis
Pan Giannakis
I know what you mean, a lot of the items belonging to my father's side of the family are irretrievable now, part of my childhood memory was a military helmet (the family myth claimed it was German) that my grandmother used as a watering cup for the hens she had in the garden. There was also a picture of the people of the old village taken by the retreating German army - they had it in my old house and you can barely see my father aged 4 at that point. i took this snapshot of that picture, i am afraid that picture is gone for good now. My dad is the person with the red dot and his mom (who died in 1948) is holding my aunt (green dot). This was the only image ever taken of my grandmother who died very young due to tuberculosis.
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p.giannakis
Pan Giannakis
Just in case anyone else wants to know how to correct the colour on slides - here is what i do.
- I open the picture on GIMP and select levels. Then i chose the drop down box on Value:
From that point onwards, i adjust every value of the red, green and blue - i bring the pointer to the starting point of the histogram
Or
If you get too big variation then unfortunately you cannot do a realistic adjustment. If it is more than that red line in the picture below, then i bring it as close as possible to that vertical line an leave it there.
I hope this makes sense.
- I open the picture on GIMP and select levels. Then i chose the drop down box on Value:
From that point onwards, i adjust every value of the red, green and blue - i bring the pointer to the starting point of the histogram
Or
If you get too big variation then unfortunately you cannot do a realistic adjustment. If it is more than that red line in the picture below, then i bring it as close as possible to that vertical line an leave it there.
I hope this makes sense.
Attachments
Michalm
Well-known
It works for you very well , colors are great. There is similar method using individual R G B curves to invert scanned color negative. Perhaps you should pick up some color film or slide film again and see what you can do with it now since your most recent photos seem to be all B&W
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p.giannakis
Pan Giannakis
When at uvinersity, we used to meet on Saturday mornings and go for coffee with friends in the area below the Acropolis (Plaka).
Not sure when this was taken, judging by the good exposure i would say it is taken with the EOS-5, so late 90's.
Kodak Ektachrome Elite 200
Not sure when this was taken, judging by the good exposure i would say it is taken with the EOS-5, so late 90's.
Kodak Ektachrome Elite 200
S
Stelios
Guest
To Φωτογράφος perhaps?
p.giannakis
Pan Giannakis
Correct.
I have all Φωτογράφος issues from No1 to No100 at home. I scanned 44 issues (including some Practical Photography issues) last Christmas.
Solaris in Stournara Str was receiving subscriptions for Practical Photography back in the mid-late 90's so i ended up getting some of those too.
May 1996 issue has a letter I sent them regarding APS. Boy, i had some worries back then...
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S
Stelios
Guest
And that was before the digital onslaught!
I had a photo published once. The first prize on that one was not as good as in other issues (a strange round Minix digital camera. Not sure where that is now). I must still have the copy. Sometime in 2001 or 2002.
p.giannakis
Pan Giannakis
I got my first issue in March 1990 (Issue 3) - in there were the following pages that, when i saw them, i just wanted to buy a camera. I sourced second hand issues 1 and 2.
I still get goosebumps when i go through those pages.
DownUnder
Nikon Nomad
Ah, the Plaka. In 1971 (53 years ago in May!) I had a week to kill in Athens while my airline fixed up and rebooked my ticket from Athens to Canada after my (previously alluded to) stint in the prison in Kos. I had ample time to kill and not much money, and back then the Place was a place for locals to be seen at night, loitering at tables with friends, enjoying the cool and chatting about the day's events.
The Athenians were a kind lot (I would think they still are, if rather more allergic to foreign tourists now than they were back then) and I made many new friends. Various drinks were presented to my table for my tasting - a lot of Metaxa brandy and other interesting liqueurs made in the islands was consumed and I have recollections of stumbling back to my budget hotel, usually assisted by one or two kind locals, embracing and declaring my undying affection for few lampposts on the way. One time I was there at lunch time (obviously good habits die hard) and I made the friendly acquaintance of two German ladies "of a certain age" who were sitting at the table next to mine - in my more experienced old age I would assess them as a couple, very worldly, extremely kind to a young traveller obviously somewhat down on his luck - who invited me to share their lunch of a large Greek salad and platters of small delicacies (I recall fried tiny fish which we ate heads, tails, bones and all) and two wonderful Greek wines, Chevalier de Rhodes and Lindos dry white. I remember those vinos to this day, so good they were.
In such enjoyable company both Greek and German my six days in Athens passed quickly, and when my rebooked air ticket and long-awaited money from my bank eventually arrived for me at American Express, I went to the Plaka for one last time, in fact two times, atlunch and in the evening, to "shout" my friends to food and drink from me. Nothing was expensive in Greece then as I remember. Today the cost of a day's reasonable eating in Athens even without getting stuck into the alcohols, would have kept me well fed and watered for a week back then.
With all that sociability and those good times, would you believe it, I never made it to the Akropolis? It shames me greatly to write this. If ever I needed only one reason to return to Athens, surely this would have to be it.
I miss those times, but even now in my old age there are still consolations when I travel, now mostly to Asia where a cool Bintang, Anchor or Tiger beer with cracked ice and a slice of lime, soaked up slowly in the shade at a stall while watching the street life around me, suffices.
I am now too old to try to relive the hurdy-gurdy travels of my twenties, so trekking about the Greek Islands with a backpack of Nikon digital gear would be too much for me. One camera, at most one or two lenses, maybe. A last visit to the wonderful Plaka of Athens would be a delight, altho' I no longer hold to the illusion that is is now what it was then. Que sera sera...
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