Monthly Archives: December 2014

Athens Metropolitan Expo

Travel to Athens, Travel to Greece, , ,

I visited once again the Metropolitan Expo Event Center for the Greek Tourism Expo an international Tourism Fair for Greek destinations. The weather was fine and I grab the opportunity to take some photos.

The Metropolitan Expo – Exhibition Center is the largest, most modern and functional venue for exhibitions, conferences and events in Athens, designed to the highest standards, ensuring thus functionality, flexibility and aesthetic integrity of facilities.

Metropolitan Expo building is located just 2 km after Athens International Airport “Eleftherios Venizelos” in Spata, Attica. Although the exhibitors usually offer free transportation in their events, you can easily visit the venue in the same way someone can visit Athens International Airport.

Dimitrios Asithianakis is a photographer and a photography teacher. You can find him on Facebook Dimitrios Asithianakis.

My first SLR camera

Travel to my thoughts, , ,

When I think of my past in photography I can’t ever remember feeling such a sense of  satisfaction as I felt when I bought  my first SLR camera. It was a Zenit 12XP. The Zenit 12 was first released in 1983 and the XP model was intended for export and so it was named XP from the word export.

I bought my XP in 1987, in Athens, from a Russian immigrant paying a 1/3 of my salary at the time. I had been thinking about getting a SLR camera for years, but my economical situation didn’t permit me to. From 1984 to 1986 I served my military duty in the Greek army, so it was impossible for me to buy any such equipment. When I was finally dismissed from the army,  and started working more consistently I bought a Honda 50cc moped and then a guitar with my first savings. The camera was my third serious investment.

This camera became my faithful companion for four years and we studied photography together on the road before I seriously took up photographic studies at the Focus School of Photography. I betrayed her in 1991 and dumped her for a Nikon FM2 and locked her away in a closet to be forgotten.

Dimitrios Asithianakis is a photographer and photography teacher. You can find him on Facebook Dimitrios Asithianakis.