Interview by Yiota Hadjicosta
What happens when a six-year-old child picks up a camera for the first time? I was thinking as Mr. Loukianos and I sat in the attic of his photo studio on Griva Digeni Avenue. The truth is that walking in there, you feel more like you’re in a museum than a traditional photo shop where you go to take a picture for your ID or passport. Three! Yes three thousand cameras and equipment have been collected to date!
The Loukianos Art Photography studio, of Loukianos Engrafou, goes from generation to generation. First his father, Nonis from Morphou, then himself and today his son.
Upstairs in a small room of the photo studio, on a Monday morning, he will explain to me how, as a child, when he first picked up a camera, he managed to stand out with his work. “It’s not a job,” he will say to correct me! “Photography is an art, a love, a great love and a passion.”
Since when have you been photographing?
I started taking photographs almost from the day I was born, one might say, because my father was a photographer in Morphou and had his own photo studio there, where I grew up. From the age of 16 I started to work professionally.
So it was a natural consequence for you…?
Clearly! My father had the photo “NONIS” (studio). With the invasion in 1974 we came to Limassol. So from the age of 14 I started to photograph and at 16 I started to go to weddings and photograph them, and in the studio, in our then photo studio in Morphou. You know, back then they were coming for family photos and so on.
And when did you first get this contraption?
I would have been about six years old…
And? What were you photographing? What caught little Loukianos’ attention back then?
Landscapes… I wanted to photograph landscapes, nature… To this day, if you ask me, it relaxes me!
But you made it a profession…
Yes, it was a profession, inevitably. But as a hobby I liked to photograph landscapes and people. But I didn’t see it that way. It’s love, I would say.
When did you come to this building?
I came to the building where we are today a few years ago. My own photo studio originally started operating in 1982. We found a shop because I wanted my own space and I first opened my own photography studio in Ayias Fylaxeos in 1982. In November. In 1994 to 1995 I came to this area where we are today.
Can photography be studied?
The way things are nowadays, everyone more or less becomes a photographer. Anyone who has a good camera or is interested in it unfortunately or fortunately can go into photography professionally.
Your first camera? Do you remember which was?
Yes, yes… My first camera was a German one that my father gave me when I was about 14. Cita. That was the brand. My father had it from the time of the struggle, when he was a wanted man. My father from the age of 13 was apprenticed to an Armenian in Larnaca. He taught him the art.
Now your son has taken over?
My son works here too, yes. He’s the third generation and he’s good.
Were you born in Morphou?
Yes, in Morphou. I left when I was 11 years old.
Your mother?
She was my father’s assistant. She wasn’t a photographer, but she was apprenticed to an Armenian – in Nicosia – and she converted the black and white photos into colour.
Do you also repair cameras?
Yes! When I first got my hands on a camera when I was 14 from my father and started taking pictures, I started my collection. Any camera I could find I would take and put away. It was easy too because at that time people in those days when they didn’t need them, they gave them away. Then when I made my first money, I started buying and started building a collection that numbered somewhere around three thousand cameras, accessories and equipment. It’s one of the largest in Europe. The peculiarity is that I’m not only dealing with cameras, but also with equipment and photographic accessories. I’m also at a point where I don’t take just anything, but museum pieces. That’s why I have cameras from many countries. From France to Australia! And from Lebanon to Greece. I also have the largest camera – functional – in the world. There is another one, but it doesn’t work, which is in London.
From your context, it was a natural progression for you to become professionally involved in photography…
No! It was love! And it still is! A passion I would say.
In Morphou? Did you go? Did anything survive from your father’s photography studio?
I did. I went in 2003 when the barricades were opened. My first task was to visit the photo studio I grew up in. I wanted to go and ask for a picture of my mother, who was playing backgammon by herself. That picture was taken by my father and it was taken with a certain technique and it was in colour.
Did you find it?
The shop was empty… Everything was missing. Then I started asking Turkish Cypriots in Morphou. That’s where I spotted the photographer who was in our shop.
And? Meeting him?
We had an episodic acquaintance, I must say. But I asked him for my mother’s picture. He told me the army came in and took what they could and the rest was destroyed. He asked me what I do and I told him that every Wednesday I go to the occupied territories to photograph churches and monasteries. He then told me to call him the next Wednesday I went and he would let me know if he found anything…
Did you call him?
That made me feel there was something there. When I went back, I called him, yes. The man had all my father’s stuff. He saved it and gave it to me! Not the photos, but the negatives! At the time, the negatives were plaques and he gave me close to 30,000 negatives. Every Wednesday, wherever I was, Varosha or Kyrenia, I would go and he would give me a box. I collected all these and for six years I worked and converted them digitally with a technique. So there is the whole history of the world of Morphou. This man is a brother to me now.
What happened to that file?
Nothing. The CUT (Cyprus University of Technology) was supposed to get it, but they didn’t. We did some exhibitions with the previous Mayor of Morphou, the late Pitta, that’s all. We did exhibitions in France, Germany, and England. In fact, in Messolonghi my exhibition was opened by the then President of the Hellenic Republic, Karolos Papoulias. He even spent an hour looking at the photographs. There was another exhibition at the initiative of the present mayor of Morphou. However, no government and no MEP, Member of Parliament etc. was interested.
Several years ago, the American-born French photographer Elliott Erwitt would try to explain what the art of photography really is through a simple sentence. “The whole value of taking photographs is that you don’t have to explain things in words,” he would say somewhere in the 1950s.
What is the most important photo you took?
Let me tell you… As a youngster in their glory days, I was the photographer of many five-star hotels in Limassol. I photographed several famous people. I distinctly remember the former King of Greece, Constantine, at the Four Season in Limassol, I think somewhere around 2000, when he came for a visit. The photo shoot was for him in fact. Also Aliki Vougiouklaki! She came for an interview with Vassos Argyrides and I was invited to photograph her. Unfortunately I haven’t yet recorded my archive, so I don’t remember many of them.
In Limassol? What do you like to photograph?
The old buildings of the city. What’s left! Limassol had wonderful architecture and I loved photographing old mansions. What stands out in the city is not one and two. Several of the 1900s and something was a true love. The houses of that era in town and on the beach were amazing.
Not much left…
On the outside they tell you you can take advantage of it but you are forbidden to change their facade. In Cyprus, unfortunately, there really aren’t many left and many were demolished or not maintained. The Pavlidis Mansion is just a few metres from the Town Hall, but we saw what happened. And if it was the only one…
The people of Limassol? Who do you single out?
I will mention only one name, who was the “love” of my life, Artemakis Zachariou. He was a huge name and chapter for our city and for Cyprus. He was an English language teacher in schools and the rest of his time he dedicated his life to the common good. He created the anti-cancer association and the Red Cross in Limassol, a carnivalist as well. I was the photographer of both him, who passed away some time ago, and his family.
In Limassol, what is the most photographed spot?
The old port! This whole area next to the Limassol Marina, together with the Pilavakis building, are the most photographed spots in the city. Limassol has changed since then, the people have changed, the city has changed, but it is still beautiful…
Over the years, pretty much most people in the world, holding first a camera and then mobile phones, have felt like photographers. After all, according to American photographer Ansel Adams, there are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.
