Nick Sorotos
@nick.sorotos
Photographer based in Greece
A big part of my childhood memories is stories and images of traveling with my parents all over Greece. I was so small and the world seemed so big, every trip was unique. As a family we have a lot of captured moments from these travels, to remember the experiences we lived together at beautiful places.
As an adult, I met my wife and a couple of friends on the picturesque island of Milos. An island with a unique natural beauty as it is a volcanic island. At that time I had an action camera and a compact one. Even though I did not have any knowledge of photography, I became the “official holiday photographer”. Upon return from our trip, my hard disk was filled with countless photographs. As I was looking at all these landscapes and portraits I had captured, and I lived every moment all over again. Suddenly, I realized that photography is the path to live the past again.
"To feel emotions, like the joy you felt when you saw a beautiful place or the happy moments you had with the people you love. Since that moment, I have been trying to show people the world from my perspective."
For me, a photograph is a link to the past – with one click you can freeze time. It’s a way of experiencing a situation that happened before. It could be a picture of a place you’ve traveled to. Or maybe it’s a picture of a person you’ve lost and in this way, you have the opportunity to bring a memory of you together alive again. I remember we had a large closet in my parents’ house which was filled with family photos from birthday parties, trips, or activities alike, and as a child, I liked to stare at them a lot, bringing those photos alive in my mind.
"Having access to so many memories is a real gift."
Photography is a way to remember, to feel, to travel. At the same time, it’s an activity with which I can become a better person and achieve my personal goals. Whatever you do, challenging yourself is a way to practice your skills and stretch your personal potential. I find a lot of challenges in photography and so it has not only become my passion but also the catalyst to continuously grow. With every difficulty I overcome and every time I push through to achieve what I had in mind, my skills become better, I gain experience, and my confidence increases.
The hardest thing a photographer may come across is the so-called creative block. It’s the time where we are getting more selective and more rigorous about our work. The way I got over this block was to take a break from photoshoots for a while. Besides, this time coincided with the birth of my first child, giving me the opportunity to empty and calm my mind and plan what’s next. It was also the moment I moved from doing mainly street photography to food photography as well as the magical world of landscape photography.
My love for Greek cuisine was the stimulus to start food photography. Having been inspired by the wonderful Joanie Simon (@thebiteshot), I am currently trying to practice this photography genre. It’s really creative and exciting at the same time! As I don’t have any collaboration with a chef at this moment, I experiment all alone in cooking, preparing a dish from the beginning to the end, setting it up, and finally shooting it.
"This whole procedure keeps me alert, enabling me to shoot and practice my passion either in my studio or out on the field."
Living in Greece is a real gift for a photographer, and I am saying this from a street, food, and landscape photography perspective! You have so many choices. As for landscapes, the beautiful islands of Milos and Santorini or the endless forests of Epirus, are just a few examples of places that are really unique. Greece has the advantage of combining sea and mountains as well as picturesque landscapes which you can photograph in a very different atmosphere by choosing to go either in winter or in summer.
However, the reality is that nature also faces violence and the consequences of climate change. The first time I was deeply shocked was when I was hiking in Parnitha National Park. I followed a trail that took me to the north side of the mountain. A large fire burned 25,000 acres of forest and many endangered animal species in that area in 2007. The whole scene was heartbreaking. I remember that half the side of the mountain was burned and the other half was full of trees. Τhe contrast was sad and thought-provoking. I decided that besides the green and lively mountainside, I had to show through my photographs the ugly truth, the other half.
LANDSCAPES
OF GREECE
Although it is natural to some degree, increases in drought and temperature due to climate change makes these wildfires a more common phenomenon. We as humanity contribute to this, although it is hard to believe our daily actions result in something awful like that, eventually. This whole story impacted me and convinced me deeply that we must change our environmental impact because we owe it to our children – and to our planet that is so hospitable to us.
There are many situations similar to the above, where we are aware of the negative impact or the importance of something but we only get to truly realize it when we are confronted with a situation that deeply touches us. This is where effective behavioral change will take place – coming from intrinsic motivation. For me it was the combination of seeing the burned forest and the thought of my son; nature should be able to thrive despite humanity living on the planet, and my son and other children of the world should be able to witness nature as lively, magical and beautiful it is supposed to be.
I remember that day; my wife was in the last week of pregnancy and we had to do some prenatal care checkups. At the time we were leaving the hospital, labor pains began. As she was inserted into the delivery room, anxiety overwhelmed me. The doctor said that I had enough time to go and pick up my camera equipment. And so I did. I left the hospital like a madman. I was on time to capture this breathtaking moment. To conclude, my favorite photo is my wife holding our baby boy and staring at me in a way I’d never seen before. At that moment I felt like the happiest man in the whole world.
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