Greece in ten photographs

Greece is the trip people photograph most and organise least. I have two of them on this map, a year apart, and between them about a thousand pictures — most of which sat in a phone until I built something that would make me look at them again.

What follows is ten of them, from Milos, Sifnos, Amorgos, Koufonisia and Athens. They are not the postcard shots. The postcard shots are already on the internet and nobody needs mine.

The Cyclades reward getting the ferry wrong. Every island I liked most was one I reached later than planned, and the hour spent waiting on a quay is the hour I remember. Milos first, because its coastline does something to colour that a photograph cannot quite hold onto.

Sifnos is where I stopped taking pictures of things and started taking pictures of afternoons. There is a light there between about five and seven that flatters everything, and then it goes, and the same street is ordinary again.

Amorgos is a walk. The monastery in the cliff is the photograph everyone takes, and the walk down afterwards is the part I would go back for. Koufonisia is smaller than the boat schedule suggests and better than the day trip allows.

Athens at the end, because it is easier to like a city after two weeks of islands. The roof I photographed it from belonged to a bar with no sign and four tables.

A year later I can name every one of these places from the picture alone. That is the whole reason for the badge on the water bottle: the photographs already exist, and the sticker is the thing that makes anyone open them.