This afternoon, I went through some of my old slides, en in a tray with strays I found a casually shot pair of portraits done in the tiny place Lendas, south coast of Crete, 1993.
I'm not a portrait photographer. Slightly nervous, I had pressed too soon, which led to the picture above. So, after the woman had sorted out her headscarf and posed herself, I turned my camera to portrait-orientation and took a properly framed shot at the "right moment". On that picture, there's nothing to be seen from the context except part of the pickup truck, but the woman's smile had frozen, en the man too looked less than candid. On the other hand, the picture above looked even worse to me when I saw it again - the light was off, and there was all this clutter!
Lendas has never been more than a row of houses and a small beach, framed within rocks. We had been advised to go there by a friend or colleague who had a good time there. Typically for many Greek places is that you regret your arrival - what on earth am I doing in this mess - and you regret your departure even more. That kind of place. Even now something was built that was outscaling the old little houses, Lendas remained authentic and endearingly improvised. Once, it will have been a fishing village. "Once" must have largely covered the lives of my two protagonists. But although tourism changed and maybe upset their life, they loved to pose. The 'clutter' around them can't harm them, it was part of their history.
Slide, scanned digitally and postworked to correct the light.
