Photo exhibition for the Holy Mount Athos.

It was 1995 when a friend, monk at the monastic republic of the Holy Mount Athos in Greece, invited me to Athos, to help him to photograph the relegious activities there during Easter. That was it; i was hooked. The following years i visited the place several times, photographing a lot, although at times it had been really dificult since the monks were very intolerant against kameras.
By the time my relations with many of them became really friendly which helped as far as photography was concerned. Some of these friendships actually have become so strong that we still meet very often although i have moved to Sweden and the distance has become thousands of kilometers.
Because of this long distance, my trips to Athos became a little more random but they continued, partly thanks to the financial help from the Association of the Swedish Photographers and the proffesional photo-lab Crimson, in the form of stipendiums.
But the photos remained in the archives and, at best, some of them where shown on internet...

Until some weeks ago, when i found an email in my mailbox from Dimitrios Salpistis, special advisor for the Mount Athos Center, and former vice-president of "Thessaloniki, the cultural capital of Europe". In the email he was explaining that the Mount Athos Center is celebrating this year a decade from its foundation, that a photo-exhibition is going to take place as part of the celebrations and was wondering if i might be interested to exhibit my work there, that they had seen in the net!!!

Well, needless to say that during my visit to Greece hundreds of negatives travelled also with me! :-) The printing will be made with the help of the incredible CCG (Colour Consulting Group) and the exhibition will be open from the 25th of June 2010 untill the 17th of September this year.

tags: Georgios Athanasiadis, fotograf, Stockholm, Sweden, event photography, Γεωργιος Αθανασιαδης, φωτογράφος, reportage, portrait, CCG, Mount Athos Center, Αγιορειτικη Εστια, Αγιον Ορος, εκθεση φωτογραφιας, Δημητριος Σαλπιστης, Dimitrios Salpistis, Thessaloniki, Greece. SFF, Crimson.