Our previous major discussion with photographer Tassos Vretto took place in 2015 when he presented at the Benaki/Piraeus Museum 138 the “Places of Worship” section, a photographic “field study” of impromptu places of worship for immigrants and refugees in Athens. and its surroundings. Of this work, he said: “My whole photographic journey stems from a deep curiosity to see, as if opening a curtain and entering.”

This “voyeuristic” mood, as he called the force that propelled him on his creative adventures, set him on an equally difficult task a decade earlier—exploring the unseen part of the lives of Greek and foreign club performance artists, BDSM and the Athens drag scene, mostly in moments before or after their performances. Behind the Scenes, completed in 2010, was presented as a multimedia installation at Piraeus 260 as part of the 2021 Athens Festival.

“All my encounters with my subjects were completely random,” he says when I ask him how he chooses subjects and whether timeliness plays any role in his choice. “My creative paths came about through instinctive choice, just like my life. It was motivated by my desire to see, each time experimenting in different spaces and with different types of photography.”

Guided by a restless eye and years of professional photographic experience, Vrettos records the invisible networks that run underground through the body of the city, establishing experiential relationships with his subjects.

Except that in his forthcoming exhibition called “The Riddle of the Forest” he takes us deep into nature. His own forest is not the best place for Sunday family walks. This is a black forest of fantasy that seems to come from the darkest tales of the Brothers Grimm. “Until now, nothing has been more difficult for me than photographing nature. When I did it, I was not interested in the result,” he says. “The Mystery of the Forest began to take shape as my lens revealed the magical meaning of life contained in nature – awe, fear, the transcendent element.”

Check in this new “avato” was made on the day of heavy rain in the burnt forest Waribombi. “Last year I decided – very angry about what happened during the summer fire – to visit Waribompi. It was an area that I adored, my paradise in Attica. I used to go there quite often to shoot fashion reports or make images for photos of theatrical productions,” he explains.

“When I arrived, I saw an absolute dystopia, a heartbreaking landscape with black shadows emerging from red-black lakes formed by rain. Due to the weather, I took a picture of the inside of the car and decided to return the next day. I continued this daily for a long time. I went deeper and deeper into the burnt forest, a long time passed until evening, and I began to discover animal images in the burnt logs. Little by little, my own narrative took shape, with these “creatures” as protagonists, brought to life by light and camera movement. Later and later at night, getting darker and darker, with rain and wind, I became a daily visitor to the area. Perhaps these images are the last living moments of this deserted place.

“It was an area that I adored, my paradise in Attica. I often went to photograph fashion covers or create images for theatrical productions.”

The result is impressive: the choreography of motionless bodies, dead matter, taking on a soul in front of the lens when the photograph is taken on fire. But also green, living forest foliage that blooms, as the darkness “freezes” them. “Almost all the way passed at night. I have often been to places where all I could see was the flash of my engine. Many times, guided by this flash and the little light of the moon, I have made my story, developing a dialogue with space.”

Thassos Vrettos has been a photographer for over 40 years, going through a parallel path as a professional photographer and a creative hobbyist, as he describes himself: “I don’t like the word ‘artist’,” he says. Something like a double life, which on the one hand has the area of ​​​​lifestyle, fashion and advertising, and on the other, experimental projects. In the last decade, more and more often we meet him in the field of experimentation. “We all grew up in the arms of Cartier Bresson and wanted to become something like that. In addition, Fellini and Tarkovsky were great teachers for me. The 1990s drew me a little more into the lifestyle and I was really in danger of deviance which thankfully I was able to bring back. The magazine and the ad space somehow began to hypnotize me. He was bright and seductive, but at the same time unnerving in the creative part. Not regretting my choice, but now mature and full of experience, around the beginning of 2000, I systematically reactivated my personal projects.

With such a broad view of the world of photography, does he think the medium is evolving, or has it been suffocating under the weight of Instagram and social media for at least two decades?

“Of course, photography continues to evolve, although there is a huge problem in her life called photoshop,” he replies. “For me, there are photos before and after photoshop. It was a colossal change, because before that, photography represented the moment of truth. Now even a sensational journalistic photo will not touch the viewer. For the average viewer, who has acquired cynicism due to excessive consumption of media, the picture no longer tells the truth. I often apologize for my photos and insist that I don’t use photoshop at all. I work digitally, but I don’t do any other processing than analog photography.”

After such a stay behind the lens, does he still find unexpected images?

“Always! And more and more now than in the past. It’s also the joy of photography that I live with every day, and I’m lucky that it’s another part of me. Together we go and evolve.”

The exhibition has been on display since November 4 at the Nobel building in Chalandri. Duration until December 11th.