The magazine of the photo-essay
December 2016 issue
by Akis Detsis
“A free, really high quality photo-essay magazine. Fabulous!”
Stephen Fry. British actor, writer and film & documentary maker
The first time I attended a circus performance was in 1996. Like most
spectators, I took some photographs and later when I exposed them I realized
that, although they were not anything special, there was something in them
that interested me.
After photographing the show from the spectators’ area a few more times, I
managed to arrange back stage access. So during late 1996 until mid-1998 I
photographed the people and the animals behind the scenes, in shows held in
Athens and Patras.
At first, the circus people and workers wondered what I was doing there with a
camera, taking pictures of things that seemed, in their opinion, not worthy to
be photographed. I believe they were also wondering what my intentions might
be and in what way the pictures could be used. Some of them posed for me as
if I had asked them to, smiling and trying to look nice. They were really glad when, after my first visits, I started giving
them some of those photos of them printed on paper. After that, every time they saw me coming, they asked if I had new
photos to give them. They enjoyed looking at each others photographs, commenting on how they looked or laughing if
someone seemed to have made some funny posture or pose. After a while they got used to my presence to such an
extent, that they stopped paying attention to what I was doing. I was able to photograph as though I was almost
invisible to them, I had become a part of the scene.
It was not my intention to photograph the show itself or the preparation behind the scenes. The thing that I was
interested in was to decipher the surrealistic sensation that came out of the mishmash of people getting ready to enter
the stage or just resting, animals in cages or out of them, scaffolds, ladders, cages, musical instruments, costumes and
other paraphernalia, while on stage an act was going on and behind the curtains everyone was preparing for the next.
Some of these pictures where exhibited in an Athens gallery (2000) and sixteen of them are included in my photographic
album Time In-Between
Athens 1998.
Athens 1997.
Athens 1998.
Athens 1998.
Athens 1998.
Athens 1997.
Athens 1997.
Athens 1997.
Athens 1997.
Athens 1998.
Athens 1998.
Athens 1999.
Athens 1997.
Athens 1997.
Athens 1997.
Athens 1997.
