My World

On August 26th I arrived in Athens Greece, the place I once called home when I was a child. I was mostly excited but also kind of scared because well, last time I was there was in May of 1996 when I was just 8 years old. Change is always hard to handle and the unknown is always a bit frightening. My husband and I were in awe when we were on the bus from Tirana to Athens, seeing all the beautiful landscapes and travelling by the ocean. We stayed in Athens for about two weeks. We didn’t get to see many things unfortunately because we were busy with a lot of paperwork and figuring out the next travel plans to Paris as well as visiting model agencies for future jobs. We did get to see the Acropolis but kind of from a far. Athens is a place that we will visit again in the future so we weren’t worried about seeing all its beauty on this trip.

As time flew by, we noticed that we hadn’t shot anything in ages so I got in touch with a young talented photographer named Thanos Houtos who helped us out with organizing a shoot for us. He arranged a stylist and a make-up artist that he knew and set up a meeting for us all to talk over ideas. He also figured out which models were in town and available and arranged the model for the shoot so we were lucky to have him co-ordinate and put it all together. It was like having a local producer and really made our lives easier.

Here are the photos I did from that shoot. Enjoy

The team:

• Model: Nilene Krazia (VN Models)
• Stylist: Dimitra Michalakopoulou
• Producer: Thanos Houtos
• Make-up: Despina Gavala

A few months ago, while in Albania, I was trying to keep myself occupied (when you are a girl in a country such as Albania there isn’t much you can do). Anyhow, I was trying to shoot but there were no modelling agencies in the city or in the whole country for that matter. I tried the whole going downtown and asking random girls that I found pretty and interesting enough to want to shoot but  most of them didn’t give me the time of day. They would walk right past me and the ones that did stop and gave me a chance to talk would let me talk for a few minutes before telling me “they aren’t gay”. When I first heard that I was shocked and speechless (those that know me know I am not one to be quiet and have nothing to say) but this came out of the blue and I wasn’t expecting it at all. I was left dumbfounded and just in awe of what just had happened. I didn’t let it discourage me though. I still kept at it and I heard that saying a few more times and I would tell them “I’m not gay, I am happily married, I’m a Canadian photographer visiting family and just want to photograph people”. Nothing worked. So I just bowed my head down in shame and took myself back home. Since no one would let me shoot them I had a lot of time on my hands.

I had nothing better to do so I decided to make a few videos. These videos aren’t amazing by any means but I had fun and they were my first ever attempt to make something different. Since I had a huge problem with finding models I stuck to shooting myself hahaha

Hope you enjoy them.

Music: Deftones – Change / Music: The Cinematic Orchestra – To Build A Home

Change

Build A Home