CHARIS IOANNOU

Cyprus based street photographer Charis Ioannou started his photographic journey as a teenager in the early 90s using his father’s cameras and experimented in his home darkroom. Being drawn to music from an early age he eventually studied jazz music in Boston and New York. In 2004 after his music studies, he enrolled in New England School of Photography where he studied under the guidance of Nick Johnson who introduced him to the 4x5 camera and Ansel Adam’s zone system. After a year of continuous practising of the craft he returned to Cyprus and went straight into his music career while his photography remained dormant.

As a jazz saxophonist he travelled extensively and performed in various countries in Europe, Middle East, Asia, Africa and the United States. It was during one of these travels back to New York where he got intrigued by his surrounding environment and using his old i-phone started his street photography endeavour. In December 2019, a few months before the pandemic he bought his first digital camera and his street work started getting more and more serious. He now specializes in street photography shot in black and white on a digital monochrome camera. His photographs are all single exposures without any image manipulation.

Artist statement

“Being a professional jazz saxophonist for more than two decades, I found getting into street photography very natural to me. I find many similarities between how a jazz musician improvises around a tune that has a specific structure and the way a street photographer improvises around a scene to get the maximum out of it.

The way experienced jazz improvisors manage to have successful story telling through their playing is very similar with the way street photographers compose successfully the scene being immersed in.

The delivery of a seasoned jazz musician is often clear and confident even if the actual musical content is very complicated. This can also be translated into street photography: a complex scene should be portrayed with great clarity and often simplicity even if there are lots of intricate actions and nuances taking place.

Lastly, all great jazz musicians have a unique voice whether playing over a beautifully structured composition or a simple tune and even if their voice is unique, it is always different every single time. An experienced street photographer also has a unique “voice” or eye, if you want to call it, and is recognizable immediately even when shooting an everyday scene or a very unique and rare scene, and will never shoot the same thing twice despite multiple visits to the same location.

Every street photographer will improvise their own story. This is mine. Thank you for viewing my work!”