Nikos Economopoulos: The Irrational Eye of the Balkans by Jerome D. Introduction Nikos Economopoulos (b. 1953, Kalamata, Peloponnese, Greece) is one of the most significant documentary photographers working in Europe today — a full member of Magnum Photos since 1994 , and the pre-eminent Greek photographer of his generation. His path to photography was indirect and unhurried. He studied law at university in Parma, Italy, and worked as a journalist for years before a chance encounter with a book of photographs changed everything. In 1977, at 23, a friend showed him a volume of Henri Cartier-Bresson's work . The effect was immediate and permanent: "Cartier-Bresson showed me a new way to see things. What I saw in his work was not only geometry and composition, but a kind of ambiguity." Even then, he did not rush. He spent two more years reading photography books before raising a camera. When he started shooting, he did it seriously from the first day: "I nev...
"The camera is an instrument that teaches people to see without a camera" - Dorothea Lange