Athens, city of women

Constantinos Pittas: Athens, the city of women

[...] Of course, I did not photograph only women at that time in Athens. But I saw women wherever I was, they were careful, they interested me. I was interested in their interior, not their appearance, how they brought out what was inside them in their face, which was an open book for anyone who wanted to read it. And through the women I saw the men, the life, the society of the time, as if I was looking through a kaleidoscope. Observing the wide expressive range of the female face is the ideal way to see the human, the human destiny. Wherever I traveled after Athens to photograph, the female faces I saw on the street led me to understand what was happening around me, and this happened in all European countries.

Most of the photos in this book were taken from March to December 1984. It was only then that I discovered the lens and photographed it with passion. A few more images come from the following years until '89, when this wandering stopped. I did not try to capture the time then, it was the last thing I wanted to do, nor does the book attempt to do so now. Greece in 1984 was still at the beginning of the change that would bring it to where it is today. Athens was very different at that time, especially in the periphery, in the neighborhoods. In popular neighborhoods, for example, which still retained some color, you saw a nice working world working hard in factories, buildings, workshops, shops, the majority of society at that time was not dependent on the state, did not live from it. You saw a powerful social fabric and a vitality. And little kids, lots of little kids, everywhere you go. It was the border, everything would change drastically. Of course, there were the same pathogens as today, the same internal wounds, the same big words, the same ugliness, the same sadness, the same nonsense. [...]