The Making Of “A Wound That Would Never Heal”

“A Wound That Would Never Heal”, 35mm, f/4.0, 1/200s, ISO 100. Lens: 35mm f/1.8, Camera: Nikon D3200

“As I came back to Piraeus, I found your parents’ house locked up and abandoned. You left no word where you had gone. The word had been said, the promise broken. The door is shut and nothing anybody could do would ever make things right again.”

This photo was taken three years ago in Athen’s harbor Piraeus, southwest of Greece’s ancient capital. I usually got there by bus after I flew into Athens, to catch a ferry to Paros or any of the other islands. Things would change often and I was never too sure how I would get to my destination on one of the Greek islands in the Aegean. I always stayed at Faros hotel on Notara although it was a rundown neighborhood with abandoned houses, discos and strip clubs. There was a certain sadness about that place that had everything to do with me coming and going and not staying long enough in one place to have any relationship that mattered. It was something I wanted and despised.

I didn’t walk the streets too much, but I took pictures of some of the abandoned houses, defunct clubs, and cafes with old men. I wondered who had lived there and what had happened to those people and why they had to leave. And what would happen to Piraeus?

I did some basic adjustments in Lightroom, then adjusted contrast and temperature as a Nik Color Efex layer in Photoshop, then highlighted the brighter areas around the door in Nik Viveza and sharpened the metal on the door using selective LAB sharpening. I finally converted the image to black and white with Nik Silver Efex Pro.