I was never really fond of Santorini. Honestly, I could never imagine spending my vacations there. I find the island to be stressful, and if I want to be surrounded by loads of people, I’d rather stay in a big city. Sure, the landscape is stunning, but that’s not enough. Shooting the Polaroid Diaries: Santorini on the island was challenging: I had to cope with my feelings about Santorini and present some usable images.
Whenever I stop in Santorini (on my way to other islands), I get stressed. The island is sold entirely to mass tourism, and there are trillions of people. The invasion of the selfie-takers is nerve-breaking too: I’m not talking about people talking one selfie as a memory; what I’m talking about here is people shooting hundreds of selfies in silly poses. No, you can’t turn your head to the other side: somebody will be doing the same there too, like for example in Prague. Add on top the suffering donkeys and the excessive prices, and you have a solid impression.
Apparently, the Greek state decided to focus on selling Santorini decades ago. This comes at a price, though: nearby islands don’t get any attention. I’m not talking about tourism; I’m talking about the life of the locals. Smaller islands don’t have medicine, don’t get provisions, don’t get anything. As for the entry points to Santorini, they are miserable: a horrible port, an even more atrocious airport. If you stay in Kamari, which is close to the airport, you’ll hear airplanes landing and departing all night long. Sorry, Santorini, you are not for me.
What you’ll see in the Polaroid Diaries: Santorini
After leaving Anafi behind, I wanted to spend a few days in Athens. Therefore, I decided to take the ferry from Anafi to Santorini and then fly back to Athens. That said, I only had a couple of hours in Santorini (read some lesser-known facts about the island here), something like between 9 am and 3 pm. It was a hot autumn day, and the light was already harsh.
I had one Polaroid roll left in my backpack, and I initially thought of taking some photos with it in Athens. But, since I had a couple of hours to kill in Santorini, I decided to shoot there the film instead. I know that Santorini is very pleasing to the eye for most of the people, so I decided to experiment a bit. Once again, the light conditions were not optimal. But on the other hand, when you find yourself only for a couple of hours in a place you don’t have much choice, do you?
I loaded the roll on my Polaroid Onestep+, and I started strolling around Fira until I finally took the way up to Firostefani. Even though I thought of taking a polaroid of the donkeys, I decided not to. The donkeys suffer in Santorini (they carry everything), and making a spectacle out of misery is something I dislike.
In my Polaroids from Anafi, I presented mostly the nicest photos. Some experimental images didn’t work, therefore I could leave them out of the post. But in Santorini, I had only one roll of film. What if no photo looked good? What if all of them were just bad? Well, I thought of risking it. It was also an interesting way for me to see if I can have usable images. After all, if you shoot 100 polaroids, you have probably a bunch to present. But what happens if you happen to have only one roll? Well, challenge accepted, and in this post, you’ll see what I got.
Polaroid Diaries: Santorini
I took the first polaroid from Santorini at the port. I was still inside the ferry, and I took a photo out of the (dirty) window. The blue sea, details from the nearby island of Thirassia and the landscape of Santorini is what you see here.
And then, after reaching Fira, I started walking around. On the roof of a cafe, I saw two lonely chairs. The summer in Greece seems always to be about blue and white. As it’s often the case when you take photos under harsh light, there is some vignetting on the edges. Even though I took the photo manually using the Polaroid Originals app, I couldn’t avoid it.
Further on down the road, I saw a church, and before it, there was a “For Sale” sign. As you probably remember from the introduction of my text, I have the feeling that everything is sold in Santorini. I turned on the camera and tried to take a photo that would present the church as if it was for sale too. The light was intense, and when you shoot with Polaroid, you can either have highlights or shadows, never both, especially under such light. The sea appears almost black, but I saved the whites that carry the message.
I took a break at Firostefani for a cup of coffee. Firostefani is significantly less crowded than Fira (at least for now), and I found it beautiful. Once again, I couldn’t avoid some vignetting due to the early afternoon light.
Now, it was time for some double exposure. I didn’t want to have something very impressive. I saw a woman standing in front of a veranda. The landscape in front of her was great, but she didn’t pay that much attention. I decided to take an ambitious photo: to have the landscape moving away from her while she stands still.
On my way back to Fira, I had a quick stop to one of the most beautiful places I’ve seen in Santorini. It’s the Volkan Cinema, a cafe with a big yard and a wall that is used for showing movies. It’s actually the only place in Santorini that it wasn’t packed. I took a photo of the cinema wall together with the sea.
My last photo from the series Polaroid Diaries: Santorini was taken on the way back to Fira. A man was cleaning the roof of a building. His silhouette appeared in front of the sea. I knew that I wanted to have the contrast, therefore I had to underexpose the photo. That way, he would appear as if he was cleaning above an abyss.
So, these are my seven polaroids from Santorini. The eighth shot from Santorini is again from the Volkan Cinema, but it was too dark to keep it. So, shooting a polaroid film in Santorini gave me seven photos to present and 1 to throw away. Judging by how tired I was and how intense the light was, I felt satisfied. It meant that I could present here the Polaroid Diaries: Santorini. And also, it meant that I could forget for a while that I was walking around Santorini.
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Last Updated on July 24, 2021 by George Pavlopoulos