"I am not Akropolis"

I was in Athens on business for the last two days. Last night, I wandered around the hotel I was staying (Imperial, a hotel I have never stayed before) to see what it is like and I soon came to a square (Omnia Square) where there were many drug addicts, drunks and other dodgy types.



I started to take a few pictures (with a small digital camera) when suddenly a fight broke out between some of the guys. Police came and arrested a few of them. When they saw me taking pictures, they confiscated my camera with the words that I was not allowed to take pictures of policemen ("I am not Akropolis, you are not allowed to take pictures of me", one of them kept saying).



After the policeman had deleted the pictures on my camera, he gave the camera back to me. Mind you, the pictures were not that great (so not a big loss) and with the prospect of having to go to a business meeting the next day, I did not want to get into a big argument with the police - after all, I did not want to spend a night at the police station explaining my position that I thought that Greece was a free country where you could take pictures in public where ever you wanted - so much for freedom of expression, after all the incident took place in a public space and not in someone's private house.



As I said, not a big loss in terms of the pictures, I missed others this week in the Ukraine (where I was before) that I am more disappointed about. Just leaves this photoblog entry without images :-(

Refuse lorry in Athens

Che Guevara lives in Greece

Shop Window of the Attica Department Store, Athens

Which customer group are they targeting? :-)

Somewhere in East London...

Somewhere in Bath....

Visa pour l'image, Perpignan - post mortem

So I made it to the photojournalism festival in Perpignan this week. Needless to say that it was great! How couldn't I have had a good time? The sun was shining, I had some time off to think, breathe, feel and see. I literally soaked up all the exhibitions there and attended the evening slide shows as well. I will definitely return next year - and stay longer.

A few comments - of a very subjective nature -:

- I was pleased to see that not all was about war photography. Although more visible, eye catching and maybe dominating, war photography was actually only one part of the festival. There was a refreshing variety of documentary projects on show - both in the exhibition halls and at night during the slide shows at the Campo Santo.

- The general quality and standard of the stories on display was very, very high. All of the exhibitions on show demonstrated the intense dedication of the photographer to the subject matter, a profound analysis of the core of the story and a relentless pursuit of the story.

- The only disappointment (and a minor one as such) was that the quality of the prints was not always up to scratch (probably sometimes due to the low quality of the original digital file/negative).

Canet sur Plage in September

Sabine's Birthday Party

Before heading off to the South of France, I had the opportunity to catch up with my long standing friends at Sabine's birthday party in rural Germany.

A few impressions from the evening...