Abstract
Tryfon Babilis
University of Leiden, The Netherlands
Photographic traditions and Aegean modernities. An ethnographic biography approach
Since the beginning of the twentieth century photographs have become an integral part of the social life of Aegean islanders. Photographic images have been incorporated and often associated with “tradition”, “authenticity”, ritual practices and local identity. A way of approaching this traditionalization of photography is the biography of the self-taught island photographer Giannis Vernardis who kept the only photography shop on the island of Skyros for over thirty years. The story of the photographer’s life and his widely circulating photographs are vehicles of varying notions of tradition and modernity that are of central importance in contemporary ethnography and anthropology.
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