I found it:
http://www.amazon.de/Athens-Photopocket-Vassilis-Gonis/dp/3823845799/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1356626685&sr=1-2
great !
You found it indeed!
Your view of the world is quite different from mine and thus captivating. But the subjects you chose are subjects I like to work as well! The cemetery, the window reflections, the gardens, etc!
The issue you mention about the presence of people (and their faces) in the photos is common for every major country in the world, that tries to protect the human rights. But these human privacy laws are badly written and they deprive photographers and eventually the world from the good old human documentary photo made famous by the likes of Bresson, Capa, Eugene Smith etc. And it is pretty weird, because life has never been less private than today. We are monitored all the time and anyway our lives are less exiting than ever due to the virtual life and relations through a computer. See the facebook case I mentioned, which can sell your private information, name and preferences, and photos without telling you! It is actually a passing of information to big companies and governments. See the thousands of cameras in the streets and in public places. And the only other exception is for journalists, that most of them have become pawns in the hands of the big newspaper owners and their big businesses. I don't know for a fact, what is going on outside Greece, but here every major business man with investments in construction, insurance and other big money businesses, always buy a TV station, a radio station and a couple of newspapers in order to influence the public and pressure the government.
It may sound like an excuse for my using these photos, but I know the ethical dilemmas and understand the risk. I always respect people's privacy. I never make public, photos of people in strange or diminishing situations, at least not without their consent (which is very tricky, because you have to ask their permission before you take the photo and this 99% of the times ruins the original mood. ) But a photo of a person for me, has to do with a reflection of the human condition. The more personal it is, the more universal it can become. And the secret is hidden not in the details or the clarity of the photo, but in the symbolic and aesthetic magnitude encoded in the photo by the choices a photographer makes during the shooting and later on the choosing and post production. So I really find peculiar that these laws have become so strict for the every day photographer, who is in fact the only reliable recorder of the history of man.
I like portraits very much and I always try to convince people to pose for me. It is hard sometimes, not because they disagree, but because the easiness of having a camera and taking a photo, has ruined the "mythical" status of a photographer. So they don't focus, they are hasty and that shows in the photos.
But this is another story! I will keep looking at your photos. I leave some comments, always to the ones that draw my attention! I will try to write you about the general feeling I got from them, but probably in the new year!
