The Creative Photograph in Archaeology

[...] In the 20th century, photography as applied to archaeology begins to follow two main paths. The purely scientific and technical recording of antiquity, which it serves as an auxiliary, and an aesthetic approach to ancient art, which expands the boundaries of photography as applied to archaeology. The purpose of the present exhibition is to explore the aesthetic dimension of archaeological photography and to describe its development from the artistic photographic attempts of the 19th century travelers to the creative archaeological photography of the 20th century. The exhibition describes this development through a group of photographers whose work is extends over a period of 150 years. Each part consists of photographs that had an influence on their time, showed new tendencies in the representation of the antiquities, or suggested a new way of seeing beyond the obvious, implying, sometimes cautiously, sometimes directly and intensely, the creative approach of the photographer. The photographs are characteristic examples of their time. They describe a path, exploring the possibilities of archaeological photography to emphasize its artistic contribution while at the same time recording information and subjective "reality". [...] (από την εισαγωγή του Κωστή Αντωνιάδη)