Ioanna Tsilili for Oinochoos Magazine
Portrait photoshoot of the wine maker and artist, Ioanna Tsilili for Oinochoos Magazine. Ioanna Tsilili is a chemical Engineer, Winemaker, Master Distiller and cinema addict . Founder of @tsililisterres.
Domaine Hatzimichalis Wine Campaign
With all the support from Leonidas and Panagiotis Hatzimichalis, I followed the wine route in Domaine Hatzimichalis for this greek wine photography campaign. From the Valley of Atalanti, the vineyards, its grounds and the winery until bottling. Every space the human element turns it into a space of creation and defines it. The richness of the natural environment, the value and respect of the ecosystem are highlighted. In this campaign I felt that I followed and captured the steps of our ancestors, from the past to the present.
The producer Dimitris Hatzimichalis is the creator. He is the one who determines the entire production process. He is the one who takes care of quality in all its stages. He is the one who envisions, who chooses, who evolves, always with the aim of the taste, the aroma and the perfect experience of a wine. He made his first wine in his backyard at the age of 19 and several decades later he had excelled the process and became one of the top wine makers in Greece. When Dimitris Hatzimichalis first visited Atalanti Valley he was amazed by its unique ecosystem and fertile land; without second thoughts he bought his first vine hectares in 1973. Today, his privately owned vineyards have reached 220 hectares (520 acres).
In the wine photography process, Hatzimichalis family ties emerge through the relationship with the land, cultivation, passing of wine philosophy from generation to generation. The man who envisioned and made winemaking a reality in the Koilada Atalanti Dimitris Hatzimichalis and now his sons, Leonidas and Panagiotis, welcome a new look and all together continue the tradition and expand its borders. Both of them are passionately contributing to the family business with their modern mindsets. They work hard to keep the tradition of the winery and maintain their father’s legacy. Their vision, is to expand the brand further and enter in new markets abroad. Lastly, their mission for the winery is to make it even more environmentally sustainable, by reducing wastes, energy/water consumption and by using recyclable materials.
Every year at Domaine Hatzimichalis, the harvest and pruning periods are performed by a group of skillful and experienced women. This was a deliberate choice, as Greek women are known for their caring, patient, and tender character, in addition to their overall courage and strength. These women are who Domaine Hatzimichalis trusts in our tradition of hard work. Dimitris Hatzimichalis always been amazed and inspired by their care for the vineyards, which is essential for the quality of the wines and the brand’s success.
The photography campaign will accompany brand's ads worldwide, exhibitions walls, press releases and magazines presentations.
Dora Bakogianni
In this portrait photography for Kappa Magazine of Kathimerini News, Dora Bakogianni stand in front of my camera, in the middle of the historical Dionysios Areopagitou Street in Athens.
"Celebrity is a mask that eats the face", said the American writer John Updike. For more than 30 years, Dora Bakogianni has been a famous politician. What is her real face and how long has she "endured" behind the "mask" of political celebrity? In a way, that was the theme of our meeting in her office, with its double view of the Parthenon and the Pillars of Olympian Zeus, at the beginning of Dionysios Areopagitou Street, in Athens. The eldest daughter of Constantinos Mitsotakis, the older sister of the president of New Democracy, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the former minister and almost the leader of the party is the female parliamentarian who has gone through perhaps the most difficult tests and has recorded the longest journey in politics to date. Where does the self-confidence that many admire about her come from, or the arrogance that just as many others insist on accusing her of?
Why be in politics when you know in advance that you will be misunderstood, beaten and never recognized? "There are a million reasons not to be in politics and probably all of them are right. But there is something about politics that you cannot find elsewhere. That incredible satisfaction that you have the ability to change a little stone in things and in the lives of others. It's not true that you can't. You can. Evrytania today is not the same as Evrytania in 1989. I used to cross the rivers walking on a log and there are now bridges. Evrytania had four doctors and now she has thirty-six, while she had reached forty-eight.
"And yet, I have no faith in myself," she says as she begins to slowly and steadily remove the mask, wanting to show that her real face is the same as the one she's had since she was a little girl in Athens and Crete. "It's a myth that I have a lot of confidence. Instead, I'm a woman with terrible insecurities and too many complexes. My main concern for many years was my height. Terrible complex. No boy would dance with me. I was the tallest and ugliest in the class. My mom sent me to ballet. But the teachers made me dance backwards. Eventually I found myself near a warehouse and left, because I was messing up the line. My grandmother had told me that there was no way I would ever find a man in my life, because as tall as I am, who would care to take me? And at school, my grades reached 16-17 at the most. I saw the twenties with binoculars."
The smile as a "defense"
But how does this description square with her public image? "When I entered politics, confidence became part of my public image, because what I didn't want at all was to reveal those fears and that insecurity. I felt that if others took my great weaknesses for granted, they would trample me down. After that, no one ever found out what my fears were. I was once attacked for smiling. But the smile is a pure form of defense. Apart from the fact that I smile by nature, in difficult times the smile is a defense, and I would say that it is a very good defense, since it irritates a lot of people..."
Text by Pavlos Papadopoulos for Kathimerini
