Constantinos Tsiliacos. Photographer
Constantinos Tsiliacos is a photographer, daylight enthusiast, and creator of the wonderful Daylight Studio White in Blue in Lagonisi.
"I love that photography hasn’t changed in the slightest, it still feels like the first time I caught a camera in my hands"
BYO: A few words about you.
CONSTANTINOS: I would start by saying that professionally, photography is not just photography. It's a lot more than that. It's a great love that hasn't changed or diminished since I was 17 and I went to New York, initially to study Mathematics. I started in one of the most ideal cities for photography
I finished my math studies because it was something I promised my father. But I continued with Photography at the ICP, New York School of Visual Arts.
I worked at the Telegraph with Yasmin Le Bon, while You and Your Wedding was my second big break in England with fashion editor Peta Hunt, a really strong name, in the top five when it came to bridal worldwide. I worked with her for seven years doing editorial and covers.
The evolution in bridal is to work for very large companies like Demetrios Bride and Mark Lesley Bridal wear in England.
From the first day I started photography in New York to the present day, nothing has changed in how I feel like I want to photograph.
My mood and my joy in photography are literally the same.
The next step is that I worked with a lot of magazines in London. Marie Claire, Arena, S Magazine, Company, Canary Wharf and many other collaborations. London is my second home.
I moved there, the agency in London asked me to be closer there as a base. I moved in 2010. Since 2004, I've been coming and going, keeping room there, too.
BYO: How did White in Blue, the daylight studio you've created, come about?
CONSTANTINOS: When you're in London, you reasonably think of the sun, the daylight. I've been thinking about how it's possible that we don't have something like this in Greece. In London, there were outdoor studios on rooftops, but the conditions were not favoured to be used.
Many of my clients from abroad wanted me to photograph in Greece, in daylight, as long as someone was there to organize it. So I slowly combined a not-so-permanent return to Greece. Aiming to start a studio like this.
In Lagonisi there is a family estate. I said, why not here? After asking some people in the room, I ended up doing it there.
I also teach at a really, very nice school, Orama studies, where I started with a daylight seminar and continued in class.
BYO: Which place fascinates you photographically but also as a culture as a whole?
CONSTANTINOS: It's not our cultures nearby, but the tropical places like Seychelles I really like both photography and lighting. Flat surfaces, different from the Greek landscape. They are interesting because both geographically and geologically, they offer completely different lighting conditions than Greece.
BYO: Do you see the city as a photographer or as a passer-by?
CONSTANTINOS: Mostly not as a photographer. I photograph the man, whether it's commercial, fashion or whatever. I'm throwing a lot of weight at the man.
When I travel for work, I'm interested in meeting all the people we're going to work with, the local, how they spend, their concerns.
You finally realize that all people have problems in common.
BYO: With one foot in the commercial photo and with the other on a street or whatever?
CONSTANTINOS: I always focus on man, I respect man. Either he's a partner or whatever. Combine all kinds of photography under the man theme. Everything comes out natural, human. And come out, of course, the way you photograph.
BYO: Is there anything you've learned through your work?
CONSTANTINOS: A lot. Cooperation. Good cooperation between people. Teamwork.
BYO: Do you have a solid image as a driver, something that has affected you in the photo?
CONSTANTINOS: I've been very influenced by the '80s and '90s in New York. I grew up and was influenced by photographers like Peter Lindbergh, Bruce Weber, Herb Ritts, they were the ones I watched and adored. Especially Herb Ritts, because he lived and photographed in a villa in California and photographed a lot of daylight. He's probably the one who influenced me on the choice of daylight photography.
Something personal that follows me when I photograph, especially in more personal photographs, is to be able to capture the characteristics that are the soul of the person I photograph, to catch right now.
BYO: Is the daylight studio the newest project?
CONSTANTINOS: Life evolution is always a new project. I'm always preparing something new. The studio has found its feet, but it still has things. I want it to become a hub, not just a studio.
There is another new project, based on tribal marketing. To people who have a natural and true profile on social media. I won't say more at the moment, it's early and it's ongoing.
BYO: Does Greece have its own things to show in fashion?
CONSTANTINOS: Primary things exist, as long as one truly works and is a creator. You offer the general part of fashion. You're putting on your little stone. Many are worthy in Greece who creates with international multiples at all levels of fashion.
BYO: do you think you've brought things from your experience abroad?
CONSTANTINOS: Yes, probably the organization. England, for example, has a methodology where business is done, and I try to apply it very much to my business.
BYO: Is there anything that irritates you in a job?
CONSTANTINOS: People that aren’t able to operate as a group, collaboratively and out of time, which affects the whole team.
BYO: What do you like about a job?
CONSTANTINOS: The mood of the team to work. The nice mood overall.
BYO: Do you like Athens and what is it you like about it?
CONSTANTINOS: Very. After the first 3 years of the crisis, I saw an Athens that was evolving very much into a form like East London or a little Berlin. That's what I really liked. In fact, that was being discussed outside. A journalist friend who works at the Guardian told me that it is something that is much debated, whether Athens or Lisbon is the new Berlin. It's something I believe in and I like. Athens is progressing well on various levels.
BYO: Athens or ...?
CONSTANTINOS: Athens. And where I have to go to work. The first suggestion to my clients is Greece, however.
