Travel Story: Morocco: The beginning

I really didn’t want to leave Spain, I was loving everything about Spain, the language, the people, the food, the climate. I could walk downstairs and get a delicious meat sandwich for €2.00 and walk 5minutes and you are at one of the most beautiful beaches you'll ever see. Everything about Spain reminded me of living in Greece, the hot weather, the beach, the nightlife.

Anyways, enough about Spain.
So here we are approaching Marrakech going 300km/h at 1500 feet. All you can see is just light brown sand and concrete buildings. 'My first touchdown on the continent of Africa' i thought to myself. Exciting or nervous? A little of both. Let's just say I didn't know what to expect. Enter the passport checkroom, this was interesting. 6 line ups and about 200 people. I line up but halfway through waiting, the customs agent handling my line decides to just get up and leave. Excellent system. So now there’s 25 people in front of me wondering if they should move to another line up or? I pick a lineup that’s going fast, pass through, 30 minutes of waiting. When we get into the actual huge airport room, I'm surprised by the size of it and the modern architecture.


Decided I didn't want to start bargaining right away so we took the bus into the medina.
I stepped off the bus and I'm immediately culture-shocked. There are a thousand different smells in the air, curry, camel shit, dirt, petrol, you name it. Men are walking around holding hands with each other, apparently it is common and non-homosexual whatsoever...just friendly(in fact, having same-sex activity is illegal in Morocco.) Camels hanging out under a tree, monkeys on leashes, cobras in baskets being poked by their master, you know normal every day things you would see in North America.


Not being completely overwhelmed I get swarmed by locals, selling things, hash, soap, etc. Amongst these locals are the horse-carriage men(that is what I shall call them), being overwhelmed and not knowing where the hostel is I decide maybe I should take one of these. Well, here was my first lesson on 101 bargaining with a Moroccan 'businessman'.

"220 DIRHAMS SIR!" he says. Quick conversion in my head = 22euros. I say, "Don't think so, way too much." "How much?" he says. "80 dirham." I reply. "120" he says. "OK" I say, thinking I just got 10 Euros off! Woohoo! When in fact I soon realized that was way too much to pay. I did not make that mistake again on my whole trip. But the guy did take us through the market streets that hardly fit the carriage and were packed with people. He then took us to where our hostel was and pointed down a small alley. We got off in a hurry cause we felt bad that this carriage had just gone through hundreds of people, pushing them aside to let US through. Then a man approaches us, shaved head, baby blue shirt, pink hat, clearly hits the gym every day, pretty much a Moroccan Guido. I show him our hostel address expecting directions but he then takes the paper and starts leading us through the little side streets. The carriage had dropped us off at the wrong street. By the time we got to our hostel this man had recruited 10 random kids that led the way. I knew that I had to tip him but i had no idea how much and I wasn’t going to tip all the little kids too. I figured 20 dirham = 2euro is enough; it did only take him 5minutes. I hand him the 20 dirham, disappointed he simply turns around and leaves. And that is how our journey into the depths of the Marrakech medina begun.

Travel: España June 10th-14th

On June 10th I landed in Reus, Spain with my travel buddy, Josie. I then took the bus to Tarragona, Spain where we would stay with Josie's sister, Violet. We were to leave for Morocco on the 4th day in Spain. We spent our first day in Tarragona on the beach where we wrestled giant waves and ate delicious local sandwiches.
Our second day, we travelled by train to Barcelona and checked out Park Guell, a park built in the years of 1900-1914 by Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi. When we returned to Tarragona we went to check out the local clubs and have a drink. The next day we relaxed then headed to a spanish festival in a small neighbouring town, there we listened to a live spanish concert and ate Churros. The next day we would be heading to Marrakech, Morocco.

Exhibition 2010

On April 26th, we had the Annual Algonquin Photography Exhibition where we displayed 1st year and 2nd year work. Me and Jen Hladkowitz being two graduates and apparently having displayed good public speaking skills, were chosen to be the 'Masters of Ceremony'. We had to get up in front of 400 or so people and introduce the presenters for the different awards.

I won the NIKON Award($500 Gift certificate) for 'Best Magazine Cover'! I was also nominated for 'Best Website', and 'Best Portfolio'. So happy to have won that award and nominated for another two, just comes to show that I'm on the right path and people like what I'm doing. Thank you to everyone that supports the work I do and to my sister for modeling the shot that made me win!

To check out the set-up, a slideshow of images from the show, and the Awards slideshow, click here.

Thank you to everyone that made the exhibition possible! Good luck to all my fellow second years on their future adventures!

Co-op in Los Angeles, California

In order to graduate from the Algonquin College Photography Program all students must complete a certain amount of hours of free-labour/co-op/internship/field placement with a Pro Photographer.
During the search for a photographer, the photography I enjoy and want to go into is discussed between Jen Allison (a fellow graduate) and Angus Fergusson (a Toronto Photographer). Angus suggested I check out Kwaku Alston (a Venice California-based photographer).
And so I did and after a month or so of constant emailing and phoning back (without being annoying) I got the placement with him!

Shortly after that I was on my way to Los Angeles, California interning for photographer Kwaku Alston. My time with Kwaku was spent organizing his studio and workspace, getting rid of old papers and old electronics, website building, and assisting on photoshoots.
I assisted Kwaku on the beach photographing people with an 8x10 camera for his 'Horizon Court' series, documenting different individuals in Venice beach. I also had the chance to see what it is like behind-the-scenes at a 'People' Magazine photoshoot in Beverly Hills where we photographed Dancing with the Stars couple, Maksim Chmerkovskiy and Aaron Carter.
It was an overall amazing experience and I hope to see more of Kwaku and Los Angeles in the near future.
Thank you Kwaku for giving me this opportunity, I'm glad to have helped!

Check me out on Kwaku Alston's blog(under 'Entry 104')
Check me out on the Algonquin College Photography blog

Published in 'NITRO Magazine' Greece

I think I will start posting again, considering i havent posted anything in three months.

Here is a good way to start blogging again. I was published in a Greek Magazine! The magazine is called 'NITRO' and it's the equivalent to Maxim magazine in North America. It sells 35,000 copies a month and is the No.1 Magazine of its kind in Greece. I was asked to photograph my sister, Tess Spentzos, for an article about her acting career. Originally Nitro Magazine wanted to do the shoot but seeing as my sister was not in Greece, the job was up to me to deliver a few magazine worthy images.

The shoot took a while because I wanted to make sure I get the right shots for the job. As you can see from the pictures, I used a lot of the studio's accessories to create different backgrounds, for example the picture with the black and white dress I put two tables together and used the belly of the tables as a background! This also gave it a backstage movie set vibe, which fit in perfect with the article. After a long and tiring shoot, we called a wrap and post-production took effect. Not too much digital imaging was necessary for the shots. This project happened to take place at the same time I was preparing my Preliminary Portfolio for review. It's a small taste of what the real world of photography will taste like, bitter but sweet!

After looking at the pictures, the editor of 'Nitro Magazine' loved them so instead of a two-page spread, they turned it into a three-page spread. If you have a copy of the January issue of 'Nitro' magazine the article is on pages 62-64, or else check it out right here!

All images © Christos Spentzos 2010. These images may not be used without written permission under any circumstances.

Midnight Smoke

Midnight Smoke

This picture is the result of a late night shooting session in my backyard, weapon of choice, my Mamiya c220 w/ a flash unit attached to it.

A few months ago, Josie and I were watching TV in my living room and for some reason I decided to drag her outside just after midnight and shoot her. Why not do a little night photography? So, I told her to take off her clothes and just leave her bra and undies, then gave her my jacket with the white leather sleeves. I pulled the jacket down to make it drop off her shoulders, gave her a cigarette, and told her to light it. I remember distinctly how it was really hard focusing because it was completely pitch black outside, and from what I recall I focused on the flame cause it is the only thing I could see. Once I was focused, I snapped the picture because lighting a smoke doesn't take to long and you have to be quick. I was trying to capture the raw, and vulnerable state of an addict getting their fix very late at night. We took a few pictures but this is the one that really stood out, and out of all of them I think this best represents that state of mind.

Just before we finished the roll of film, Josie looks up and sees that one of my neighbours lights had just turned on and then saw someone looking out the window and staring at her. That is when I realized that every time I shot a picture the flash probably went into people's houses because it was so dark outside. So thinking that I just woke up my neighbours, had them see Josie standing outside half naked was probably the best time to wrap up the shoot and so we did. This was my first attempt at using a flash with the Mamiya and trying out night photography.

All images © Christos Spentzos 2009. These images may not be used without written permission under any circumstances.

Standing On The Shore

STANDING ON THE SHORE (6/6)

This is the final image of the images that were in the 'Face & Film' photography exhibit. I took this photo kind of discreetly because I didn't know how this guy would feel about me taking a picture of him and his daughters. I found this guy very interesting, he wondered along the beach for probably half an hour talking on his phone the whole time, while his girls just climbed and played on everything on the beach.
There are a lot of things I like about this picture, I'm going to start with the guy's pose. His pose is quite unique, his whole body is in a sort of 'S' curve, and then his one arm matches the placement of the other arm. There's quite a bit of balance in this photograph, if you notice the sky takes up half of the image and the earth takes up the other half. Let's talk about colour, there is balance there too, quite a bit of blue and different kinds and it is balanced with yellow. There isn't the same amount but because yellow is such a strong and bright colour it doesn't take much yellow to balance out the blues. I also love how the guy's shorts has the exact same blue of the sea and exact same yellow of the boat, it almost connects them all. I would also like to point out the almost inter-positioning that takes place with the surf boards and the yellow boat, also has to do with lens-to-object distance. It goes larger white surf board, big yellow boat, and then finally smaller white surf board. It almost creates a sort of linear perspective too.
I'll end with giving you a sort of description of why we were there. It all started with the boys wanting to go windsurfing because they had seen a advertisement in a flyer that said 25 euro(40$) for an hour of windsurfing. They got all hyped up and I drove them to this beach which might I mention was quite far from where we lived, even if it is just an island. We got there and I realized that it was a beach that I had not been to since I was a kid, i remember going to this beach and going horse back riding. Anyways, we get to the windsurfing place and we ask about the cheap windsurfing, but apparently if you have never windsurfed before you have to have a private lesson for half and hour and then you go on your own for the other half an hour. So the boys didn't want to do that, especially since it turned out to be even more expensive. We didn't let that bum us out, so we just relaxed on the beach listened to 'Standing On The Shore' by Empire of the Sun and watched hippie jesus-looking people go by with their butt-naked kids. The end.

All images © Christos Spentzos 2009. These images may not be used without written permission under any circumstances.