Sunday morning after church, 40 years ago: My mother's brother's coffeehouse in my home village of Remmatia--one refrigerator, one sink, one tiny butane cooker for the preparation of Greek coffee, three small round metal tables, a few wooden chairs, a hard-packed dirt floor, and the village's only telephone.
From left to right: My first cousin on my father's side of the family, my father, the village priest, my uncle, my cousin John on my mother's side--the only person still alive--all captured in a room inundated with incredible, bright late morning light.
How your photo here transcends the passage of time.
ReplyDeleteForty years ago and we can almost touch the inhabitants, your relatives, your ancestors, and family friends. We can stand by them, smell their coffee, and all but feel the hard earth beneath our feet.
And oh, such wonderful morning light.
What a great photo. I think our memories are cross-pollinating....
ReplyDeleteI've taken bunches of photos over the years. They're in a box in the garage. I'd dig them out, but they're all in color. When I look at your photo it makes me wonder if mine would be out in the garage if I'd shot them in black and white. Beautiful! Of course, even that classic look—so elemental, the colors not eliminated but concentrated into shades of gray, shadow and light like some subtext or substructure of reality—even that couldn't redeem my weak eye for composition....
ReplyDeleteIt's been so long since I've had a Greek coffee!! Almost feel like I'm there again. Thanks Vasillis.
ReplyDeleteE, W, J, A--
ReplyDeleteI still get shivers whenever I look at this photograph--to be so close and yet so far away
from this moment frozen in time. Let's just say I was incredibly lucky this Sunday morning so many years ago.
Thanks to you all for commenting--it almost makes me want to dig out my boxes of b/w photos that I have in the attic.