Maybe 10,000 residents. And she won’t win any beauty awards either: Nea Michaniona is in the north of Greece, about 30 km from Thessaloniki. The area is characterized by agriculture. Michaniona herself makes a living primarily from fishing. The places very close to the Thermaic Gulf also benefit from tourism. I probably wouldn’t visit Nea Michaniona as a tourist, there are many other places in Greece. But my sister lives there with her family. And the small town is associated with childhood memories. My father grew up there before going to high school in Thessaloniki. His father was a fishing trawler captain. Unlike the people in many other villages and especially the residents of Athens, my ancestors did not suffer from hunger during the German occupation. I still remember the many summer nights in the open-air cinema when I was maybe 13 years old. Two films were always shown, I fought against buzzing mosquitoes and tried to make sense of what was happening on the screen. I understood maybe half of the original, mostly American movies, but combined with the Greek subtitles, which I only understood half of, it made for an entertaining story overall. Possibly miles away from the original film. I even remember watching Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner in that theatre, that must have been 40 years ago. In a small shop right next to the no longer existing open-air cinema you could have a cassette recorded for a few drachmas. The shop owner had a lot of records there, you picked one, and the next day it was on cassette. I still love the song “Michelle” by the Beatles. When I visited Michaniona this year, I got my hair cut at a hairdresser whose father had once done my father’s hair. The bittersweet taste of melancholy. The photo of the hairdresser’s father and son and a few others that I took on the beaches near the town were taken with the Fuji X 100 V. And I used a special color profile that simulates the look of Kodak Portra 400 color film. Even if a subject always appears different on film than when captured by the oversharp digital sensors of modern cameras, the film simulation still reproduces the apricot-colored summer feeling well. You can find the settings on the following website.
navidson & streets 