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Echnilasies
@echnilasies
Creative team based in Greece
As kids we were both inspired by our father, an aspiring visual creator. When we were teens, he took us to the shooting of a film by Theodoros Angelopoulos, a friend and collaborator. These shootings took place then in Northern Greece, on Lake Kerkini, where now, 25 years later, we are creating a new set of images in the same place.
"However, we didn’t take the same route to where we are at now - an artistic team with ambitions and a deep love for our country, Greece."
Petros:
Before I finished high school, at the age of 13, I already knew that photography was the path I would follow. With the help and guidance of my Father, I chose the University of Napier in Edinburgh. In the third year, I had to choose a minor and chose the direction of cinema to train myself in another field than photography. For 2 years I couldn’t pick up a camera, nor capture a simple landscape. But for my graduation in 2008 my father would come for the ceremony and we would go on a road trip to northern Scotland. I told him to bring the Hasselblad X-pan with 30 clips… From that trip on, I never stopped photographing. The camera was the channel for me to communicate my inner world to the outer.
"Every moment of inner introversion, thought, joy, sorrow… feeds the urgency and passion to express it through an image."
Constantinos:
In contrast to Petros, I took the touristic route to get to photography. I studied Mathematics and Economics, continued with a master in Economics and Technical Studies for Environmental projects and until I was 22 I had not even thought of becoming a photographer. I started my career in Cornwall with the best intentions, but I quickly realized that I had embarked on an endless hunt for success that took me away from creativity, which I consider vital. So I gave up everything and decided to spend all I had earned on a five-month trip to Latin America. There I volunteered in Peru, made a road trip to the Andes of Bolivia, went to the Galapagos, lived for a while in the Amazon and discovered many places in Colombia. As a result of these experiences, and the free time that had enabled me to think clearly about what I should do and what not in my life, I managed to discard my imaginary need for a career that would bring me more money and realized that I do not want to spend 2/3 of my life without observing and creating.
"My real needs and desires were to travel and to express passion. So, I returned to Greece and started from scratch, working as an assistant for my brother Petros."
Petros:
After graduating from university I worked for a while in my parents’ photography business, but inside I felt a lot of pressure. Getting to the point of having second thoughts about my choice. The big change came with the arrival of my brother, where having finished financially, he had a much better idea of how we could proceed alone, “free” from the shackles of the past. We set up our own company and in the beginning, in order for it to work, we had established clear roles. Constantinos was in the organization and finances and I was focused on the creative part. This helped us to have our own goals and responsibilities and to walk harmoniously together. Reaching today, these roles are knitted, but without creating tripods.
Constantinos:
First, when I decided to return from England and give up the career I had chosen, I got a more organizational and less photographic role next to my brother. At the same time, however, I admired, observed and identified with the aesthetics and images of my father and my brother. I believe that internally I had begun to know what I wanted to do through their images.
We make sure to separate photography for livelihood versus artistic expression. With that philosophy we started our business and live up to that still today as it serves our practical needs and our creative desires. A passion for visual creation and travel is what is overlapping and connecting these two aspects of photography that are so important to consider when doing photography for a living.
Our father’s life has been full of adventures, pictures and travel stories and we are building our own. Both of us have had these eye-opening and breathtaking moments that gave birth to a desire for exploration that fuels every trip. That, combined with our love for Greece, people, and the diversity of landscapes worldwide, resulted in our collaborative and documentary project “Echnilasies” (Explore).
The philosophy of Echnilasies originates from the curiosity for and exploration of isolated areas, forgotten traditions, lost tribes and unique landscapes in Greece and abroad. We aim to showcase all of these, and different ways of living and philosophies that are either little or not known at all, and to make our people “accomplices” of our journey by sharing our photographic and cinematic work.
At the same time, it fully serves our longing for travel and discovery, and we learn by listening to people from each area we visit. The documentation, both thematically in the form of episodes and in the form of smaller videos and images, will allow the material to be reproduced both on television and online in the appropriate media.
We seek identification with adventure, nature and history through a creative and modern way of recording. The audiences that we target concern all age groups, however with special emphasis on the young audiences, that through modern structured episodes, videos and reproduction on social media and their participation in their formation, can live the experience of each destination and get to know the people, its prominent figures and learn about each place in the most virtuous and naturalistic way.
To achieve all this, we are a group of four working on this ongoing project. This was a huge challenge in the beginning. We started with seven, without having established clear roles. This brought some friction resulting in the departure of three. After that, we took a moment to set specific roles and a focus for each of us. Now it’s the four of us, working on this exciting project with good communication, clear intentions and a shared passion.
"The experiences we live together also really bond us."
One time, we wanted to do a circular hike with an overnight stay. Having checked the weather a few days before, everything looked good. So good that we said to go for winter hammocks to enjoy the clear sky. Though the clear sky didn’t show up, on the contrary. We made the mistake not to check the weather shortly before leaving again, and ended up in thick fog and a really high humidity. As it was night, we decided not to risk hiking down and tried to sleep. Around 01:30 we woke up, all drenched and one of us wasn’t feeling well, afraid of getting pneumonia. Thus, we packed our stuff and started hiking a long way down through the dark and the fog. It was so dense that we couldn’t see more than 2 meters ahead, but with the downloaded map of the route that works with GPS we managed to get down after 4-5 hours; a road that normally would take about two hours.
In conclusion, the challenge and the discomfort we handled as a team, and the beautiful moments we shared despite everything, was what strongly connected us and boosted our teamspirit. Next time we will definitely organize ourselves better, but these are moments that show that an aligned team can move mountains and that shared experiences connect hearts. What we achieve and do with this project is really based on our “we and us” mentality instead of “I or me” mindset – each individual has their skills and focus, but it’s the “we” that makes us join forces and realize this project.
"Together we can be better, achieve the greater. That’s how we hope to inspire others with what we do and how we express our gratitude for all we experience, see and meet on our journey."
The creative team
Constantinos Sofikitis (@c_sofikitis): Producer / Photographer
Petros Sofikitis (@petrossofikitis): Director / Photographer
Argy Valasiadis (@_argy): Filmmaker
Billy Goutis (@billygoutis_videography_)
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