Dimitris Fotiadis

"Northern Folklore"

Northern Folklore grew out of my time living in the North, surrounded by glaciers, volcanic landscapes and long, silent nights. It wasn't just a place I photographed — it was something I experienced physically and emotionally. The cold was constant. The wind, the black sand, the rough sea — everything felt intense and distant at the same time. There were moments where the landscape felt completely empty, and others where it felt almost alive, unstable, like something was about to happen. Spending time there, I also listened to stories from locals — fragments of folklore, quiet mentions of presences in nature, things half-believed and half-remembered. These stories stayed with me and slowly became part of how I was seeing the landscape. Ravens appeared again and again. At first they were just part of the environment, but over time they started to feel symbolic — like watchers, or repetitions inside the space. They carried something familiar but also unsettling, connected to loneliness, myth and omen. There were nights with moonlight over ice, storms breaking over the sea, volcanic smoke in the distance, and moments where everything felt still and suspended. Other times the environment felt aggressive — wind, darkness, shifting weather. These contrasts shaped the rhythm of the work. Photographing everything in black and white allowed me to focus on what I was feeling rather than what I was seeing. The images became less about documenting a place and more about translating the weight, silence and tension of being there. Northern Folklore is not just about landscape. It is about how the North felt to me — cold, mythic, isolating, and deeply alive.