Where did George Meis take his pictures?

I went to Greece in 1990, and bought some 1991 calendars by George

Meis. I love his images of colorful staircases, pots, walls, fruit

etc. I really want to go back to Greece and see if I can find the

places where he shot these pictures. If anyone knows where he did

them, or where in Greece I can find similar marvellous colors, I

would appreciate if they would tell me.

 

Thanks

I'm not familiar with his work, but I'm guessing a fair number of his shots were taken in Santorini & Mykonos. In Santorini, I would suggest spending an afternoon shooting in Oia, get something to eat, and then pick a spot for the sunset because hordes of tourists will be dropped off (people are doubled up along the paths). I would also recommend walking from Firastofani along the caldera into the main town. Lots to shoot.

 

In Mykonos, I'd recommend starting from the main town in the morning, then hike up the hillside until you get a good view of the port.

 

However, each island has its own charm, frequently found by meandering through the cobblestone paths.

 

I'd suggest entering the names of islands & towns in Google->Images. Should give you a good idea of what you will find.

Where you can find similar colors??

 

In Photoshop of course!

Jordan: You are evidently from Greece and ought to know. But the calendar was published in 1989. Was Photoshop good enough then to make the kind of images he did? You'd need pretty incredible selection tools.

Hi Joe!

I'we been to Crete this september, and I was stunned by the calendars and postcards of George Meis. On the very first day I went to a bookstore and bought THE LAND OF CRETE by Meis. I recommend that book to you and everyone interested in colourful land- and cityscapes which are nearly dream-like! I love the works of Meis, and Galen Rowell's too (and continuously try to copy those colours), but the use of colour in their works are somewhat untasty at times.

 

To answer your question: most of the photos were taken in Santorini Mykonos, and Crete.

 

I suggest you to

1. go there when the weather is changing from day to day (summer is not good)in september-october,

2. get up early, before the sun,

3. wait until some shovers/couds/or windstorms pass by and after you get the colours you want.

 

Oh yeah, and dont't forget your ND grad and polarizing filters.

 

In his book Meis writes that he made ALL of his images in the winter, early in the morning or in the sunset. He also mentioned that he wanted a more traditional, tourist-free image of Crete, so he wiped out all the tourist signs, taverna-lights, and foreign stuff from his pictures by computer. Do you think that while doing that he ignored the hue/saturation buttons in Photoshop???

Besides that shooting on winter, he use a several plan technique on reduced spaces. So when you go to the locations as I did, the pictures are �on real impossible to make. Either with the wider of your wide angles lenses.

Now, the technique he uses is to mount his camera in a tripod and shoot deferments plans making a kind of rotation on 360 degrees. After all plans are evenly take, he start his work on Photoshop, which is huge and very good.

Must of his shots are from IA and Fyrostefani, location near to IA. I�m talking about Santorini, where he has been spending the last winters.

Other hint: Some of the pictures you will see in tourist book are fake, therefore will be very difficult to find the spots. Well, you will find the spots, but no the backgrounds and the angles of view specially those pointing to Nea Kameni from the Caldera, are twisted.

01.04.2004