16 July
It’s deeply complex: it’s not what you see. There’s a tension between what you are and what you know. One must read behind the phenomena, the surfaces; one could take hours, days, months to comprehend one column capital, working over the surfaces with a magnifying glass in search of scratches. This is scientific. Then there’s the romantic view: maintain the established ruins, the picturesque. Sitting on the stylobate of the Parthenon, next to the second column from the southeast corner (on the west side); looking out over the city, the Piraeus barely visible in the haze. Isolation. Balance and the beauty of design. Deception.
The ‘taking’ of pictures.
The plain of Plataia, north of Athens, Greece
(3 July 2001; usual camera)