Charalampos Kydonakis

Rethymnon, Greece

website flickr blog

You have quite a large and diverse body of work. At the same time you work full-time as an architect. How do you do your time managing?

I think that the diversity in my photos comes from the fact that I don’t know what I‘m searching for exactly, or what I try to tell through my photos. Maybe someday I’ll find out, maybe not. If I don’t find out, it probably will keep me moving, I guess.

When it comes to my work as an architect I’m lucky my working hours leave me free time in the afternoons. That way I have time to go about shooting photos myself or to search for other people’s work on the Internet.

What do you like most about using flashlights?

I like to be able to create my own light and be somehow independent from the existing lighting sources each time. The flash helps me to achieve this. I guess that when I point the flash at the subject of the photo I want to emphasize and bring the subject one level up from a darker or a non-interesting background.

Why “Dirty Harry”?

Harry is a shortcut in Greek of Charalampos, my full name. Dirty because I like dirty photos.

Selected artists contribute to your blog. How did the collaborations come about?

When I have free time I search for photos of other people in the Internet and when I see something interesting I feature it in my blog. It helps me to come back to these photos whenever I want to see them again.  And if anyone else is interested, they can search the blog to see photos that I find inspiring as well.

Would you consider yourself a “photograph hunter” or do you just happen to find the situations you capture in your images?

I always carry a camera with me. There are times that I go out on purpose to shoot photos, there are other times that I haven’t planned a photo walk, but I come across something going on and I just happen to be around.

Which of your projects would you say is your favourite one? Why?

I don’t know. All the subjects attract me. It always depends on the mood that I’m in. When it’s summer I prefer to shoot on the beach. When I want more action and I want to take pictures of people, I mostly shoot photos in the night. When I’m calmer, I like to search for landscapes, or urban details.

Is there an artist whose work you admire particularly?

My favourite photographers are Weegee, D. Arbus, A. Sander, G. Winogrand and M. Parr. Apart from photography, I love to watch the movie masterpieces of S. Peckinpah, A. Kurosawa and L. Bunuel.

Do you like silent movies? What do you say about new silent movies like “The Artist”?

I enjoy watching silent movies like the ones of Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton very much. I love the fact that they speak through images, which mostly are accompanied by music. They show visual elements and don’t use words to tell stories, as it, in my opinion, happens with thousands of boring contemporary films. For me, photography and cinema ought to speak through images in the first place. Texts about photos and endless speeches in and about films are not so important for my taste. I saw the “Artist” last Christmas. The truth is that I slept during the first part of the movie - I went to see it after an 8 hours journey in a car back from Bulgaria. But I was awake for the second part and I liked it. I want to see it again at some point.

Have you been traveling lately? Whereto?

I just came home from a 10-day trip to Stockholm. 5 months before I went to Berlin and 9 months before I was in Bulgaria. I think I’m lucky to have moments with my family and friends in my life and to be able to go about the journeys that I‘ve go on to during the past years. I hope I’ll be able to keep on travelling in the future.

Do you have any objective you’d like to accomplish until the end of the year?

I think a new trip is the most optimistic scenario. If Greece hasn’t sunk yet with all the economic pressure my country has fallen in, of course. We’ll see.

Lights, Camera, Action. Take a look at his work!