Departure
Two figures
A window
The night
 
Bergman’s ticking clock
Against the pane a flickering moth
A tattered coat on the branch outside
Pixelated rain
 
The lighthouse pulse
The island
Holding its place
In the liquid darkness

Standing in a field
 
Listening to the insects
 
After the deer have flown

This and the following five images attempt to convey a sense of the mountainous landscape of my current island home, a landscape that curiously mirrors the coastal contours of the islands of the north-eastern Aegean, especially when viewed from the sea.

A photograph of the volcanic island of Ailsa Craig, viewed from my home on Arran directly facing it.

Both the Greek island from which my family originates and Arran lie on important migratory routes for birds. Observing their flight is particularly poignant for me since my own life has been defined by migration, leading me to now live on a Scottish island whose own history has been so marked by the process of migration.

A photograph taken in the Aegean giving mythical form to the search for a spirit of place from the in-between point of view of the son of Greek parents who, like so many others, were obliged to leave their country as part of the Greek post-WW2 diaspora to North America, Australia, and the UK.

A self-portrait taken on a return visit to the island of Chios to take the photographs from there included in this suite of images. If this is the search for a sense of place it is also one for my place in it.

My visit coincided with the bicentenary of the Massacre of Chios, commemorated in a painting by Delacroix (1824) taking that title and now hanging in the Louvre. This photograph was taken in the ossuary of the monastery of Nea Moni, which preserves the remains of many of those who died. Viewing these in the aftermath of a coronavirus pandemic that claimed so many and equally cruelly was particularly painful for me as my own mother was one of those who did not survive.

The volcanic black beach of Emporio, southern Chios.

Volcanic activity has shaped the material form of both the islands of the Aegean and the Scottish islands. Extended periods of lockdown have afforded me the opportunity to observe my immediate physical and natural environments more intensely than ever. Such close observation leading to photographs such as these was both therapeutic and made me simultaneously aware of the interior geography I was navigating during this period.

This sequence of photographs were taken at a neolithic settlement on the Island of Chios. My intention has been to balance the deep geological time of the material environment of the islands I photographed and their highly changeable light and skies.

Maritime activity has been a central feature of the islands of the Aegean islands and the Western Isles of Scotland. I am the first member of my family not to pursue a career at sea, though my life as a photographer has meant no less wandering than that of my forefathers.