Athens and the Way I See Differences
Athens is often described as a city of history. Yet while walking through it, I felt something slightly different. The city seemed less like a monument to the past and more like an ongoing space for conversation.
Among ancient ruins and the movement of modern urban life, it becomes clear that many ideas once emerged here. Views were debated, opposing perspectives met face to face, and not every discussion needed to end in agreement.
I walked through these places without deeply analysing their history. Still, a quiet realisation slowly appeared.
For a long time I have often tried to understand things quickly, as if differences must immediately be explained or reconciled. Yet the world does not always move in that way.
In Athens I noticed how different layers of history, belief, and ways of living can exist side by side. They do not all need to be the same, and perhaps they were never meant to be.
This journey did not bring me new answers. Instead, it left me slightly more at ease when encountering differences.
Sometimes it is enough to recognise that the world is wider than the way we understand it.
Why I Started This Journal
I have been photographing for a long time. I have been travelling for just as long. And for years I have carried stories behind those images. Yet recently I realised something: not every experience ends when the journey finishes and the camera is set aside.
Some journeys remain with me longer than I expected. Not because of the photographs, but because of the questions that follow. The way I see things shifts slowly, and that change is not always visible from the outside.
Certain journeys linger longer than I imagined. Not because of the images themselves, but because of the reflections that appear afterwards. My way of seeing evolves quietly, often without me noticing.
Since childhood, I have actually enjoyed writing. I used to write about experiences, feelings, and the small things I encountered. From there often emerged long conversations with myself, a simple way of understanding what I had lived through.
When I began photographing and travelling to different places, that impulse returned. I wanted to create something like a travel notebook, not merely a collection of photographs, but a space to record thoughts, questions, and gratitude that surfaced along the way.
Because I realised that if these things are not written down, many of them simply pass by. Feelings, reflections, even doubts, the very elements that shape the journey itself.
This journal is not meant to explain the world. It is more a way for me to organise how I understand it.
The writings here may not always be complete or perfect. Yet this is where I want to preserve the process, not only the final result.
I do not write to appear knowledgeable. I write so that I never stop learning how to see.
And perhaps that is the most honest reason.