Greek Seas: A Photographic Journey in Time

This volume presents a selection of subjects related to the sea by Greek and foreign photographers covering the period from 1850 to today offering a unique journey to the Greek seascape. It brings together images of artistic value which either serve specific ideologies or aim at mass communication. The first foreign travel-photgrahers, who started arriving in the country from 1839 and their few Greek colleagues used to think of the Greek landscape as one with its classical antiquities . The themes of Greek photograhy became more diverse after 1880 due to the technical innovation of the medium. Several decades later during the interwar period the landscape was used as an emblem of national identity, while the Aegean emerged as a particularly timeless symbol. In the decades of 1950 and 1960, well known photographers working with the Greek National Tourism Organization, had their images used in promotional material and posters. In recent decades there has been a more subjective approach to seascapes applying a variety of techniques, minimalist trends and international formalist rules, up until the emergence of the digital image, which goes beyond photographic realism.