volcano’s view – photographs from santorini, greece

Volcano’s View by Adam Adams | Make Your Own Book

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“How deep the fall can be
How the diligent urge of creation
Is crossed by the deepest red
The intense fires that stream
Underneath do feel the urge
To pierce through to lay open
The core of creation to
Follow in it’s footsteps till
The doors of perception
Cleanse and open up
Man heroic sublime”

“To my imagination spoke the islands of Santorini for a longer time when I arrived there first in 2004. As most of the peoples interested in stories told by old myths, the myth of Atlantis was one of them. Some spoke that Santorini once was this infamous lost island of Atlas, the Titan that carries the heavens, planet Earth, Uranus. But such is mythology: stories in a langauge of different times gone by. Santorini however still exists, with or without Atlas. Or at least what is left of it. A huge explosion of it’s volcano bursted the island into pieces some 3.500 years ago. The Mediterranean sea flooded in and what is left we now know as the island of Thira, Nea Kameni and other small islands of raw and pure volcanic rock. Santorini must be one of the most photographed places on earth because of this tragic fate and it’s magical landscape.
In 2004 I shot a dozen rolls or even more, but the result was not to my satisfaction, although I have used a few photograps in this book. Before I left I already had made up my mind to visit the islands again and such became reality this year.
The five days I spent in May 2010 I was lucky not to experience an earthquake. I experienced long days from dusk till dawn, sweating like crazy, carrying heavy gear on my back all the way, exploring the islands of Thira and Nea Kameni by foot in the hot burning sun. The last day I took a few shots with my analogue medium format camera; places I desperately wanted to shoot with “the real thing”, for deep down inside I need the feeling of taking a roll of film, open the back of the camera and do all the handling manual, the metering, to push the trigger and to pull the handle that transports the film to the next frame.
I love [to catch] the light in Santorini. I love the stunning nature, it’s caldera, the architecture. The way the houses and the streets are painted reminds me of puristic painters like Barnett Newman and Yves Klein. You can see the use of identic colours everywhere. I have also tried to capture the opposites between nature and culture in a few shots and have called these: “A Human Zip shows Nature his Abstract Expression”, which is off course referring to the works of Barnett Newman. You will only see a few humans in this book, but no portraits. You will see them as a part of the overwhelming landscape. The pictures of the architecture, the fresco’s and other artefacts speak already of human presence.
I also admire the perseverance of the inhabitants who have build their houses and villages over and over again, earthquake after earthquake for thousands of years. Thanks to their pride Santorini is such a little miracle. They share the same creative powers; the volcano’s fires that give birth to these rocks and the humans who sculpture these rocks into complete villages. With this book I have tried to capture these powers of creation and to catch some of mine.”