2 Like members of the Cavafy family, the Seferiadises were frequently photographed; there are many surviving portraits of the parents, Stelios and Despo. As far as their children, George, Ioanna and Angelos, are concerned, there are various portraits documenting their lives from infancy to adulthood. These photographs were probably taken in local studios in Smyrna, where the family lived until 1914. It is possible that Seferis’ interest in photography was triggered by these regular visits to the photographer, who would make records of family members in black and white.

3 Other publications include the albums Κύπρος: μνήμη кси οίγάπη: με το φα,κό του Γιώργου Σεφερη (Nicosia 1990), which contains Seferis’ photographs made during his visits to Cyprus between 1953 and 1955; Seferis, George, Photographer (New York 1999)Google Scholar; and Τρεις μέρες στα μοναστήριοί της Καππθίδοκίας (Athens 2005). Photographs are also published in the last two volumes of Seferis’ diaries as well as in two recent publications: Georgis, G., H Κωνστα,ντινούπολη τοο Γιώργου Σεφέρη (Athens 2004)Google Scholar and Papageorgiou-Venetas, A., H Αθήνα του Μεσοπολέμου μέσα από τις Μέρες τοο Γιώργοο Σεφερη (Athens 2006)Google Scholar.

4 See Kapsalis, D. in Οι φώζογραφίες τοο Γιώργου Σεφερη (Athens 2000)Google Scholar and George Seferis, Photographer, and E. Kasdaglis in Κύπρος: μνήμη και αγάπη.

5 Stathatos, J., ‘O φωτογράφος Γιώργος Σεφερης’, Χάρτης 4 (January 1983) 475-86Google Scholar.

6 Kasdaglis, E., ‘Ένα παιχνίδι από φως κοη σκιά: о Σεφέρης και η φωτογραφία’, H λεξη 53 (March-April 1986) 262-5Google Scholar. Both are reproduced in Οι φωτογραφίες τοο Γιώργου Σεφερη.

7 Beaton, R., Waiting for the Angel(New Haven, CT and London 2003)Google Scholar including a good selection of photographs.

8 Interview given to Fostieris, A. and Niarchos, T., H λέξη 53 (March-April 1986) 202 Google Scholar.

9 All quotations from Seferis’ poems are taken from Seferis, G., Ποιήματιχ, 21st edn (Athens 2004)Google Scholar.

10 Regarding the unknown location of this photograph, I would like to thank Roderick Beaton for suggesting that the excursion might have taken place in the Sanatorium on Pelion. There is no certain evidence in the archives to shed more light into this matter.

11 Figures 4, 5, 7 and 9 are published in Oi φωτογροίφίες του Γιώργου Σεφέρη.

12 ‘Photography alludes to the past and the future only in so far as they exist in the present, the past through its surviving relics, the future through prophecy visible in the present’ ( Szarkowski, J., ‘Introduction to The Photographer’s Eye’, in Wells, L. (ed.), The Photography Reader (London and New York 2003) 101)Google Scholar.

13 ‘At home in the evening I looked at old photographs.’

14 Photographs entail a linguistic paradox, in that they conflate past and present tenses into one; even if they are dead, people in photographs always exist in the present tense. When someone describes a photograph of a dead person they usually say, ‘This is X’ rather than ‘This was X’. However, there is a strong sense of pastness, of time passing, created by the observer’s realization that there is a distance separating him/her from the present of the photograph. In March 1926 Seferis writes in his diary: ‘Συναίσθηση πως γερνώ’ καταθλιπτικό θίίσθημα κοιτάζοντας την προσπάθεια των προσώπων να ξαναβγουν στην επιφάνεια μέσα από τις μπερδεμένες γραμμές των φωτογραφιών. Περασμένα χρόνια, ρυτίδες• χαώδης λογαριασμός’ (‘Sense of ageing; a heavy feeling while looking upon peoples’ attempts to re-emerge to the surface through the muddled lines of photographs. Years gone by, wrinkles; a chaotic reckoning.’) (Μέρες A’ (Athens 1975) 46).

15 ‘I accidentally bumped into papers and photographs that reminded me of my mother’s death’ (Μέρες В’ (Athens 1975) 87). Seferis’ mother, Despo Tenekidou, died on 9 September 1926.

16 ‘Further, importantly, it was shown that the putatively autonomous “language of photography” is never free from the determinations of language itself. We rarely see a photograph in use which does not have a caption or a title, it is more usual to encounter photographs attached to long texts, or with a copy superimposed over them. Even a photograph which has no actual writing on or around it is traversed by language when it is “read” by a viewer (for example, an image which is predominantly dark in tone carries all the weight of signification that darkness has been given in social use; many of its interprétants will’therefore be linguistic, as when we speak metaphorically of an unhappy person being “gloomy”)’ (V. Bürgin, ‘Looking at photographs’, in Wells, The Photography Reader, 131).

17 The connection was first made by E. Kasdaglis (Ένα ποαχνίδι από φως και σκιά’, 264). Beaton also makes the connection between the photograph and the poem by using the line ‘putting on his black spectacles as though to work with oxy-acetylene flame’ as its legend.

18 Translated by Keeley, E. and Sherrard, P., in Seferis, G., Collected Poems, rev. edn (Princeton, NJ 1995) 129-31Google Scholar.

19 According to Virgil, Orpheus descended to Hades to retrieve Eurydice, who had died of a snakebite. Having enchanted Hades with his song, he was allowed to bring her back provided he did not look back while leading her up, which he failed to do. His mistake resulted in his losing Eurydice forever.

20 ‘And a service, if I may ask for it. I had sent you before the Italian war photographs of Greek landscapes made by me; some of them were made during our stay in Hydra (you sitting on a boat) etc. Can you make a copy and send it to me?’ (Μέρες Δ’ (Athens 1977) 171).

21 ‘Today I hung above my desk the only photograph of a Greek landscape that was found, entirely by accident, among some papers of mine. The photograph of the big anchor of Poros. I had taken it one spring morning in 1940. Looking at it now, it floods my soul. But this isn’t what I need: by hacking away at ourselves, this is how we write’ (Μερες Δ’, 132-3).

22 ‘Thomas was chatting quite a bit. I don’t recall how, I asked him if he ever chanced to describe with an immediacy something that he saw, to imitate the craft of the painter who paints directly from what he sees — as I once tried in my youth. “No,” he said, “I can’t; I need the cooperation of memory.” We also agreed it’s bad to have a view in front of you when you write’ (Μέρες ΣΤ’ (Athens 1986), 36). An example of Seferis’ early attempts to describe his surroundings faithfully is to be found in the diary entry of 8 June 1926: ‘Γράφω σ’ ένα μικρό τραπεζι γυρισμένο κατά το ορθάνοιχτο παράθυρο. Προσπαθώ να σημειωσω τι βλεπω: ...’ (Μέρες A’, 63-4).

23 ‘We stopped a bit down from Amshit and watched the sun sink into the serene sea of Phoenicia. Why is it sometimes that one sees things clearly — I mean as when a camera’s settings are just right’ (Μέρες ΣΤ’, 174).

24 ‘Dawn is breaking. Yesterday’s moon still bright high up towards the west.... Have to close the aperture a bit more otherwise you’re sunk’ (Μέρες E’, Athens 1977, 63).

25 ‘As far as that goes, let me bring photography to mind, since you have done some yourself. The smaller the aperture the more detailed the photographs come out. But when you keep saying “wonderful”, “amazing”, “marvellous” you are making photographs with a wide aperture, photographs slightly blurry’ (quoted by D. Kapsalis in the Intoduction to Οι φωτογριχφίες του Γιώργοο Σεφέρη, 12).

26 See Krikos-Davis, K., Kolokes: A Study of George Seferis’ Logbook III (1953-2955) (Amsterdam 1994) 105-16Google Scholar.

27 In his discussion of this poem, D.N. Maronitis associates sunlight with poetic language, suggesting that the latter can be essentially conquered through moderating the intensity of the former: Ό λόγος φέγγει, το φως του δεν τυφλωνει, αφήνει τα μάτια να το δουν όπως το έβλεπαν οι παλοαοί στον τόπο κοα στον χρόνο τους — απλά κοα σοφά’ (Ή γλώσσα του Σεφερη και η γλώσσα της ποίησης’, in Pieris, M. (ed.), Γιώργος Σεφερης: φιλολογικές кса ερμηνευτικες προσεγγίσεις (Athens 1997) 35)Google Scholar.

28 Ricks, D., ‘Spirit and letter in “The King of Asine”’, in The Shade of Homer (Cambridge 1989) 158-71CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 Despite appearances, the snapshot, which freezes time, does not negate the concept of photography functioning as a visual diary. The diary captures the moment, but acknowledges that life and, in turn, time, is a concatenation of moments.

30 de Duve, T., ‘Time exposure and snapshot: photography as paradox’, October 5 (1978) 114 Google Scholar.

31 ‘But again, why is it that a certain impression functions poetically more than a thousand other day-to-day impressions? Note that it is not the most intense one that’s necessarily the most effective; quite often it is the gentlest. I think no one knows. Not long ago, coming down from my office I saw the carpenters taking apart a small stage, which had been inherited from the previous tenants. I felt as when a camera’s shutter closes: why this impression and not another? Yesterday I wrote “The players”; it doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad, the question is why did it come from there?’ (Μέρες Δ’, 302).

32 A. Dudley, The Image in Dispute, quoted by Wells in the introduction to The Photography Reader, 6.

33 Barthes, R., Camera Lucida 49: Reflections on Photography, tr. Howard, Richard (New York 1982)Google Scholar.

34 ‘A journal is not at all the sum of all our moments neither the quintessence of our lives, but a trace left almost by chance of a random moment here and there and not always of the grandest one’ (Μέρες Г’, 178).

35 ‘Yesterday Byblos — spring, beautiful afternoon, lots of wildflowers. Adonis’ anemones. Colours and shapes of houses. All around: good light’ (Μέρες ΣΤ’, 198).

36 See also the following extract where Seferis comments on the instantaneousness of his landscape descriptions in his diaries: ‘Προκαταρκτικά, μια γενική παρατήρηση: Επειδή ταξιδεύω, συμβαίνει να ιδώ πράγματα που δεν είδε о αναγνώστης μου, που αντιγράφω, φωτογραφώ ίσως να έλεγα• νομίζω πως είναι ευκολονόητα’ δεν τα αναπτυσσω, από αντιπάθεια της πολυλογίας, κι έτσι “αμαρτάνω”’ (‘Κοπριακες’ Επιστολες τοο Σεφερη (1954-1962): Ano την αλληλογραφία του με τον Γ.Π. Σαββίδη, ed. K. Kostiou (Nicosia 1991) 40-1).

37 ‘When in the late 1870s, Edweard Muybridge’s snapshots of animal locomotion, especially of the horse’s different gaits, came to be known in France and the United States, they occasioned a considerable furor among painters and photographers’ (de Duve, ‘Time exposure and snapshot’, 114).

38 ‘I have been photographed and knew it. Now, once I feel myself in the process of “posing”, I instantaneously make another body for myself, I transform myself in advance into an image. This transformation is an active one: I feel that the photograph creates my body or mortifies it, according to its caprice’ (Barthes, Camera Lucida, 10).

39 Barthes, Roland, ‘The photographic message’, in The Responsibility of Forms, tr. Howard, Richard (Oxford 1986) 5 Google Scholar.

40 ‘It protracts onstage a life that has stopped offstage’, maintains de Duve (‘Time exposure and snapshot’, 113-25).

41 As Peter Mackridge notes: ‘Στον τεχνολογημενο μας κόσμο, η επικοινωνία με τη ζωντανή φωνή γίνεται όλο και πιο σπάνιο φαινόμενο, όπως διαπιστώνει о Σεφέρης σχετικά με την ηχογράφηση της φωνής σε φωνογραφικό δίσκο: «Να ‘ναι η φωνή / πεθαμένων φίλων μας / ή φωνογράφος;», ρωτάει σε ένα από τα χαϊκού του. О Σεφέρης επανερχεται στο γραμμόφωνο στο ποίημα «Τρίτη» από τις «Σημειώσεις για μια Εβδομάδα», όπου «σε κάθε δίσκο / ένας ζωντανός παίζει μ’ εναν πεθαμενο», και στη συνέχεια о ποιητής αντιδιαστέλλει τις γραμμές (τα αυλάκια) του δίσκου με «τις ραφές τ’ ανθρώπινου κρανίου». Όπως γράφει στο αμέσως επόμενο ποίημα της ίδιας σειράς, την «Τετάρτη», «η ζωή είναι πλούσια γιατί βρήκαμε τελειοποιημένα μηχανήματα / όταν οι αισθήσεις παρακμάζουν»‘ (Ό Σεφερης και η προφητική φωνή’, in M. Pieris (ed.), To Џр/шоџа. της καλοσύνης (Athens 2004) 94).