About the website

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“I was born from writing: before, there was nothing but a succession of mirrors” ‘The Words’,  Sartre 

The Traveler’s Vignette is a personal website that consists of daily inspirations expressed through images and words. This website functions as a literary & visual diary of my creations. It is a collage of experimental writing and unique photography, that together invite you to see and feel the world through my perspective. You can explore photographs (analog and digital), poetry entries, short stories, but also travel journals created and written by me. The main language of the website is English, but since most of my creative writing is in Greek, the language of my writings alternates between those two. Sometimes a Greek poem will be included, perhaps with its translated equivalent in English and some other times English takes over, for example in my travel writing.

Some words about me: I am a Greek expat living permanently in the Netherlands. I have studied Journalism in Greece and after completing my second Bachelor’s degree in English Language and Culture (Rijksuniversiteit in Groningen), I decided to continue my studies as a Research Master student of Linguistics. I have worked in online media, writing mainly film reviews (film festivals, theaters), conducting interviews and writing opinion pieces. My short work experience has shown me that the plain language of journalism was not enough for me. That is why I chose to deepen my knowledge by studying English literature and linguistics, since, next to my mother tongue, I am a big English language geek. Playing with words fascinates me, building whole new worlds and sensations through writing is my main goal for this website.

Me and my photos: My love for photography began when I followed my very first photography course back in 2011, during my Erasmus studies in Turkey. After that, experimental, abstract, travel, food, landscape, nature and portrait photography have been my passion. I am obsessed with looking at photographs of hands and capturing every small detail with macro. The lessons I followed for dark room developing deeply intrigued me and created this urge for instant and film photography. I now collect and use any type of analog camera (Minolta, Pentax, Nikon), while I still use my Canon DSLR and my Samsung smartphone to take food photographs and capture small everyday moments. My experiments with instant photography are ongoing since I have still a lot to learn!

What inspires me as an amateur writer are photographs I create, mainly with my analog cameras. My life and feelings and how I see the world are what force me to create poetry. It is the only way I can interpret the world and what happens in it. Poetry, classical and modern, Greek and English always fill me with great stimuli. I tend to write with the flow of emotions and experiences, while I am trying to discover a more fictional writing style and the creation of imagery. Traveling has been one of my biggest passions. That is why a big part of the website is dedicated to my traveling experiences throughout the world, while I try to inspire and advise other people on their traveling adventures. Cinema plays also a big part in my photographic and literary inspirations. Many of my texts and images are greatly influenced by the cinematography or mise en scène of movies I like. Photographs I discover on Pinterest can also be part of my writing inspiration. The photos uploaded here though, are only created by me. In the case I upload a picture found somewhere on the web, I make sure to refer to the source.

The name. Vignette is defined as “a brief evocative description, account, or episode”. In Literature is something like “a short impressionistic scene that focuses on one moment or gives a trenchant impression about a character, idea, setting, or object”. Here it represents traveling stories, short narratives of personal impressions, with fictional or non-fictional elements, poetry and short stories in combination with unique photography. A written engraving of life through my eyes. Enjoy!

Check my LinkedIn profile for further work and education information.

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