Untitled

 

 

Untitled, Greece by Young Tom

 

“Out of 
the sea, as if Homer himself had arranged it for me, the
 islands bobbed up, lonely, deserted, mysterious in the 
fading light. I couldn’t ask for more, nor did I want any­
thing more. I had everything a man could desire, and I 
knew it. I knew too that I might never have it again.”

Henry Miller

The Colossus of Maroussi

63 thoughts on “young tom – greece”

  3. Kathleen Fonseca

    It was a dark and stormy night….

    Interesting light..the semi-circle of white clouds seen through a rain-streaked visor is mysterious and UFO’ish. The creamy texture and color of the light on the left side of the hill combined with the cocoa colored underside of the cloud above is as seductively rich as tiramisu.

    The heavy burning is a bit much for me but it’s part of your creative interpretation of the scene. A couple of washed-out bright spots a little distracting, especially the one in the water. That’s a rather serious quality drawback for me.

    Nice atmosphere..

    best
    Kat~

  6. Kathleen Fonseca

    Panos

    I sure would like to think so :)) I’d know i was a lot closer to my little key than where i am now. Hey Civilian, take down the Ouzo, put the glasses out on your little table, you got you some company, boy.

    kat~

  7. Patricia Lay-Dorsey

    I do love the vibrancy of your colors and the abstract qualities of this particular image, Tom. Mysterious and somehow familiar at the same time. Like something I’ve dreamed. Beautiful.

    Patricia

  8. Kathleen Fonseca

    i keep coming back to your photo..the light is just soooooooooo wonderful…mmmmmmmmm….

  9. peter grant

    i dig these sorts of images. nothing really needs to be said as there a visual voyage through ones own imagination.

  10. Gracie

    young tom.
    i cannot wait to see your picture.
    this black hole im staring at is endless canvas for my imagination.
    the comments about it are just wonderful.

  12. A civilian-mass audience

    “Do I love you because you’re beautiful,
    Or are you beautiful because I love you?”
    ~Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, Cinderella

    AND TODAY I LOVE YOU ALL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    LONG LIVE HELLAS
    LONG LIVE HELLAS

    THANK YOU , yes, CIVILIANS OF THE WORLD
    WE can celebrate.
    OUZO ON ME !!!!!!!!!

  13. A civilian-mass audience

    “People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is light from within.”
    Elisabeth-Kubler_Ross

    I know I shouldn’t be posting here…But…today …this “painting”…I had no choice…

    THANK YOU MR. HARVEY
    THANK YOU MR.ANTON
    THANK YOU BURN MAGAZINE
    THANK YOU MR. TOM YOUNG

    THANK YOU UNIVERSE !!!!

    YES, PANOS … THIS IS MAJOR …!!!!!!!

  14. A civilian-mass audience

    Please, Dearest T. YOUNG ,

    when you will come HOME please bring a copy of this . Your KEY is ready!!

    I am going back to Dialogues but Plato I am thinking that you might have a room key too…
    after all…
    YOU MIGHT…
    Don’t get that excited …

    ONLY ONE I HAVE TO SAY:

    OUZO ON ME

  15. Reimar Ott

    This photograph looks like a painting. A true Young Tom!
    The dark corners of the frame add something mysterious to the image.
    I would love to be out on the sea, but even at home the sun is up and it feels like summertime.
    Everybody, enjoy the day!
    Reimar

  16. Herve

    (glitch again…can see the image only using the April “ARCHIVES” link)

    Nice, Tom, love the text and its indirect allusion to Achille’s journeys (metaphor for each and everyone of us lives°. Here, one may tempted to say for once: I do not see a book…. ;-)

    But A photograph and what Photography is all about, THAT, we can see. IMO, the best compliment that can be said about any camera work, that only this medium was apt to render both the pysicality and poetry of the instant/moment.

    Here that physicality is best brought about thru the very material, and protecting presence of the window and its water runs, which indeed forces us to appreciate the savagery of the elements, seen as metaphor, dream, abstraction, filtered, and not just a rough day at sea.

    No brides set adrift on a bacchanalian raft.. :-)))… but rather than Homer and Achille, it is actually Goya that comes to mind after all.

  17. Gracie

    young tom,
    i finally saw your picture. (sigh)
    thanks herve for the tip.

    this for panos, my civilian and dimitri:

    Greece
    by young tom

    beautiful! you say
    marvelous! some speechless…
    but can you tell
    i am looking at you
    through tears?
    Greece, i am coming home.

  18. stelios

    Young Tom

    when I first saw your pictures from Greece on your blog I was astonished. I’m in awe.
    made me see my country with fresh eyes! I’m ashamed. You loved it more that I did.
    will we see more?

    Stelios

  22. anne henning

    so near. so far. touching. shivery. mysterious. the music. tears. beauty. magnificent. no words needed to appreciate your tenderness and tactile eye.

    anne

  23. Mike R

    Tom, I can see a consistency of vision between this photograph and your previous posts. I like it: photographs such as yours allow the viewer some room for personal interpretation; which has to be good. Having something like this on your wall allows you to see more over time, sometimes even according to mood.

    Like … lying in a field, staring at a summer sky, and making clouds come alive in visual imaginings?

    Although you photograph is in colour / color I am reminded of the work of Kyunghee Lee, who has published here on Burn previously.

    Inspiring stuff young-T!!

    Mike.

  24. andrew b

    Anton!! can’t see Young Tom’s photograph above….can only see it by goign to the archives for April…

    Tom…beautiful. I am going to revisit and let it sink in before commenting more…..but immediately love the light…..

    good light to all,
    a

  25. dimitri

    Gracie, thank you! (whose poem is it?)

    Young Tom, thank you too. Would definitely like to see more. And yes, the choice of the Miller quote is perfect.

  26. bblack

    Return

    Return often and take me,
    beloved sensation, return and take me —
    when the memory of the body awakens,
    and an old desire runs again through the blood;
    when the lips and the skin remember,
    and the hands feel as if they touch again.

    Return often and take me at night,
    when the lips and the skin remember….

    Επέστρεφε
    Επέστρεφε συχνά και παίρνε με,
    αγαπημένη αίσθησις επέστρεφε και παίρνε με —
    όταν ξυπνά του σώματος η μνήμη,
    κ’ επιθυμία παληά ξαναπερνά στο αίμα·
    όταν τα χείλη και το δέρμα ενθυμούνται,
    κ’ αισθάνονται τα χέρια σαν ν’ αγγίζουν πάλι.

    Επέστρεφε συχνά και παίρνε με την νύχτα,
    όταν τα χείλη και το δέρμα ενθυμούνται….

    C.P. Cavafy

    “‘I long for home, long for the sight of home.
    If any god has marked me out again
    for shipwreck, my tough heart can undergo it.
    What hardship have I not long since endured
    at sea, in battle! Let the trial come.'”
    –The Odyssey

    As if Odysseus, we, wearied of sea and sky and homelessness, awaken from a restless, nightmarish sleep, and beset before us is the white-nippled tip of life, the small white caps conjuring up for us the lost lover’s milk, the towering body of our home, stolid and straight and without diminishment, and the bark of the color of fecund-seeded land….just still, yet from our wearied eye’d reach….all this and more…the perfect pitch Tom, between soft/outoffocus and precision (the tension between just that the focus on the water stained glass, the land a palimpsest of memory and desire and all this gorgeous, burntsienna and navy dark pitches of color….a beautiful, calling home…..we can understand why Odysseus got stranded with Calypso for so long….surely, we are Odysseus and this rock-home is Calypso’s lair….

    beautiful, poetic photograph….

    thanks Tom!

    running
    b

  27. bodo

    romantic, beautiful and touching with hints of drama, suspense and secrecy…what a cocktail!!!

    it’s really difficult not to fall in love with this photo…

    wish i were a Greek too… :)

  28. dimitri

    thanks, Google! I finally managed to discover where you’ve been hiding more of your work, young tom! I really enjoyed your greek blog, some real gems there. You made me nostalgic… And yes my friend, you are well on your way to discovering, I won’t say the “real” Greece, that would be naive, as, after all, places like Mykonos (your assessment of which I deeply share) are also very very real, but the Greece most foreigners (not to mention most Greeks) never imagine existed… Bravo!

  32. panos skoulidas

    CIVILIAN..
    yes..
    Leonard’s favorite island was
    the island of HYDRA…
    ( mystical triangle between Hydra, Delfi and
    Alexandria of Egypt..)

    Bob.. Thank you for posting my favorite poet..( A.K )
    :)))

  33. young tom

    Thank you all for looking and for the comments :)) I do love Greece. But this is obvious, is it not? ;-)))

    Another quote from one of the greatest travelogues ever written (and required reading before visiting Greece). I’ll admit that I do feel, despite all the ruination of mass tourism and western homogenization, this to be true, at least for me:

    “Marvelous things happen to one in Greece – marvelous good things which can happen to one nowhere else on earth. Somehow, almost as if He were nodding, Greece still remains under the protection of the Creator. Men may go about their puny, ineffectual bedevilment, even in Greece, but God’s magic is still at work and, no matter what the race of man may do or try to do, Greece is still a sacred precinct–and my belief is it will remain so until the end of time.”

    – Henry Miller, The Colossus of Maroussi

    p.s. and Nikos Economopoulos is one of my favorites too, required viewing before traveling to Greece :))

  34. panos skoulidas

    Young Tom…
    it seems that we are reuniting in Seattle super soonest…
    :))))))))))))

  35. Kathleen Fonseca

    Civilian

    L. Cohen
    my favorite of all…
    thank you for making sure he has a key..
    i am in highly esteemed company
    counting you first and foremost of course..

    (only thing is i thought his favorite place was Babylon ;)

    kat~

  38. Lassal

    Love it, too … Looks like spring rain …
    Would love to see a real dramatic tempest done this way!
    Young Tom, are you down there for a little longer … :-)

  43. young tom

    Eric, I shot this while sitting down. ;-))

    Panos, good to hear you are heading back up this way again. Let me know, I’ll catch a ferry over to Seattle.

  44. panos skoulidas

    Tom it would be nice if we could do
    a quick stop in Olympia…
    I’ll contact u as soon as I’ll
    find out details..
    :)

  45. Kathleen Fonseca

    Civilian

    not weird..he uses a lot of biblical references and Babylon is mentioned often.

    don’t want to distract from Tom’s photo..

    kat~

  47. Kathleen Fonseca

    young tom

    you are mighty generous with your space..that speaks well for you.

    have a really great holiday, Tom, if you believe in such celebrations. i think we’re sharing a quiet evening in the Burn neighborhood. That’s nice too. i have your photo up on the screen. It’s a nice mood where i am and rain right now is scarce..makes me feel a welcome humidity that isn’t there..now if it was October, i’d grimace at the sight of more wet stuff but right now..yeah, right now, your rain-streaked viewpoint is very welcome.

    best
    kat~

  48. danny ghitis

    beautiful image.

    some people are mentioning “returning” to Greece when they see this. there’s definitely a nostalgic quality about it, almost sad, like looking out at something you can’t quite reach. Young Tom, is that what you had in mind when it clicked? or was it a visceral reaction to something lovely? not that we can separate our state of mind from the things we’re shooting.

  50. Katia Roberts

    hi tom–

    every time i see this i’m reminded of the elephant inside of the serpent in le petit prince. :)

    always love your atmospheres.

    be well, friend.

  51. Sidney Atkins

    TOM,

    “Any man who hates children and dogs can’t be all bad.”
    –W. C. Fields

    “Any man who quotes both Ken Kesey and Henry Miller can’t be all bad.”
    –S. J. Atkins

    Except in my vivid imagination since childhood, I’ve never been to Greece… never in reality dipped my oars in the wine-dark sea nor made landfall on Mykonos, Crete, or Ithaka. But I grew up with the Odyssey, was beguiled by Circe and Calypso, feared the wrath of Poseidon, and put my trust in my personal guardian goddess Athena for deliverance. Making landfall on an island looming out of the sea and sky, and homecoming after a long, troubled journey… are myths and images that are very, very deep in the soul… not only mine, but I think the whole of western civilization, part of the very base core of our culture and collective imagination. And by happy happenstance, your photo resonates with that core archetype… it slides into focus as matching a semi-conscious or sub-conscious template of the archetype and thus stirs deep memory and longing in powerful and mysterious ways. (This is what I meant by the idea of ‘resonance’ that I think I mentioned in an email to you well over a year ago).

    And so I wonder, how many of the people who have responded to your photo, whether commenters or silent observers, have actually been to Greece, or seen a scene such as this through a ship’s porthole? My guess is that it speaks to many who fall into neither category.

    Interesting (to me) is that nothing about the picture itself says specifically “Greece!” to me… intellectually I know that especially the winter months in the eastern Mediterranean and Aegean Seas can be wet, stormy, and dark, but somehow that doesn’t meld with the sun-baked Greece of my imagination. The light, the state of the ocean, the rain on the glass remind me far more of many island landfalls I have made in other climes… especially Japan and Korea, Indonesia, the coast of British Columbia, Washington’s Puget Sound… for these are the places where I have done most of my sea travel and acted out my own hollow echo of the Odyssey, and often gazed with tingling anticipation at sea and islandscapes through rain-streaked ship’s windows.

    But the simple title “Greece” is not only appropriate but singularly evocative… since whatever our personal visions or experience of Arcadia may be, they all lead back in lineage to the shores of the ancient Aegean.

    Happy Easter, everyone!

  52. Kathleen Fonseca

    Sidney!

    WOW!!!!

    I have never made landfall in a ship, have spent precious little time on the water, have never been to Greece and until CIVILIAN, never even was particularly curious about Greece..but you took this photo, sat me down at the table, talked about it, pointing to this or that as you spoke, your eyes penetrating mine, communicating your feeling, expressing so much more than words could possibly say, the tone of your voice, the profound depth of your experience and your imagination inflamed by your readings took me around the world and then brought this photograph home for me.

    To tell you the truth i was not inflamed by this photo and could not really get the overwhelming positive reaction to it. I tried and did the best i could but was only halfway there. But you gave me the missing pieces and your writing was magnificent, made a big ooomph sound as it sunk into my brain. (Though i still find that glaring highlight distracting but oh well)

    Thank you, Sidney!

    Happy Easter to you too!

    kat~

  54. A civilian-mass audience

    YOU MIGHT LIKE THIS:

    Often, when we look at a photograph we are guided by our minds and the task in hand.

    William James (1842-1910), American psychologist and philosopher believed that, “whilst part of what we perceive comes through our senses from the object before us, another part (and it may be the larger part) always comes out of our own mind”. Perception can be data-driven and theory-driven. Knowing what we are looking for helps us to form an image of what is in front of us. We also know that our eyes can sometimes trick us.

    As John Lennon once said, “reality leaves a lot to the imagination”.

    Sir Atkins, Your key of your greek home is ready …( see Katie, Patricia, My Gracie, Tom Young……………………..

  55. Gracie

    dimitri,

    see above…

    picture…
    greece by young tom

    poem
    greece by gracie
    for you…

    when i look at young tom’s picture, i dont imagine looking through a ship’s porthole
    but through my own eyes halfway filled with tears like…
    i have not been home for a long long time.

    and home might not be a place
    but me in another time

  56. dimitri

    gracie, thanks again, both for your beautiful poem and for the clarification.

    And yes, how true, that is exactly where home is. and that’s precisely why the picture (and its title which would have been perfectly apt even if the picture had not been taken in greece) speaks to so many on this forum who have never been to the aegean – Sidney Atkins already explained it much better than I could.

  57. Rosemary

    I appreciate the obscurity of this photo-how the rainy layer disguises what lies beneath it. I can sense the sea and the land however, the land mass takes on a new layer that appears to be someone lifting up the sky and peaking through it as if it were a curtain. It seems so curious to me- is this another layer or is it just the way the lighting is hitting the land mass? It looks as if the land has actually taken on a human form to welcome the traveler home.

    Best Regards.

  58. Patrik Jandak

    Very magical photo, how many photographers would worry about water on the lens, glass and try to get clear view but great eye can see and capture such a beauty in all conditions. Love this photo very nice work

  59. young tom

    Sidney, you are a wonder. My most sincere appreciation for your words which encapsulated things that I felt but could not say. And you are right, this can be many things to many people. It certainly evokes many things for me, few of which I could even begin to express, at least not verbally.

  60. young tom

    I should mention that I consciously took a number of photos through glass while in Greece – on ferries, buses, taxi cabs – for several reasons, including some inspiration from Gina Martin’s wonderful work on Mexican buses.

  61. Patricia Lay-Dorsey

    Young Tom, this image makes me think of the days back when I taught art to adults at a community center. I remember showing a slideshow of my students’ work to a local artists’ organization. And what did I call the presentation? “Art is a secret we keep from ourselves.” For we do. I have found that my own work is generally months if not years ahead of my conscious awareness of what is actually being expressed. I guess if we could say it we would. Images dig deeper than words.

    That’s what you’ve done here. And in digging deep into your own self, you’ve tapped into the universal that unites us all. This is what makes an image iconic. And to my way of thinking, this is an iconic image. I say BRAVO to you, my friend.

    Patricia

  63. Charles Peterson

    Been away for a few days so only now seeing this photo. What I love about it the most is how the water makes it look like one of those old medieval blown glass windows. Well done Tom.

    Charles

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