I am not a portrait photographer.

There are a lot of things I don’t know about myself, and I learn a little more everyday, thanks to my photographic journey. But one thing I do know is that I am not a portrait photographer. 

Agios Nikolaos, August 2019.

When I photograph strangers, I mostly prefer to capture their silhouette and to compose with the lights and shadows around.  

That’s for some part what I did for several hours this day, as I strolled thought the endearing region of Agios Nikolaos. But at some point, I just needed to stop and to have a break. I needed to put my camera away and to replace it by a nice coffee and a drink.

So I chose the first bar that came and I sat on the terrace. There was a group of elderly local people, seated a few tables away, who probably used to have a good time together. They were laughing, having fun and certainly complaining about the rain and the good weather. After a few minutes of enjoying their happiness, I noticed there was another person on this terrace. An old man who could easily have been around the table with the others. But he was not. He was just alone, lost in his thoughts, as if that moment of peace was enough for him. As if talking about everything and nothing was not for him anymore.

His loneliness created a lot of feelings and questions in my mind. Why was he alone ? Why did he look so similar to other men and yet so different ? Why his attitude made me want to take my camera so much, and at the same time, it forbade me to do so, out of respect or modesty. 

If I was a portrait photographer, I would have introduced myself. We would certainly have discussed, and perhaps he would have given me the right to photograph him. But I am not. The only thing my photographer’s instinct allowed me to do at that moment was to turn on my camera, to frame discreetly, almost hidden by the corner of a chair, and shoot, without even looking at it. Was my shot successful ? However, it would be that photograph that would allow me to remember this moment and this old man.

As photographers, we try to tell stories with our camera. But for sure, this old man can tell hundreds with his experience and his life. A life which for him, certainly requested here to take a break, and exactly as myself, to have a coffee and a drink. I don’t think he will ever know that I photographed him that day. And I’ll never know what he would have thought of it. 

That is why I am not a portrait photographer. I am just a photographer and in August 2019, I allowed myself to steal a very unique and precious moment in which the old man’s life and mine crossed once and for all.