LOVED BY WIND

LOVED BY WIND

Oreithyia, princess Mountain Gale, daughter of the King Erechtheus of Athens, was playing with her companions in a riverside meadow. Boreas, the purple-winged god of the north wind fell in love with her and asked her father to have her as a wife. When the King of Athens refused, the god of winter swept down from the cold mountains of Thrace, chilling the air with his icy breath. Cloaked in a cape of black clouds he carried off his beloved Oreithyia. Boreas was depicted as a striding, winged god. Sometimes his hair and beard were spiked with ice. Boreas' name is simply the ancient Greek word for northern wind. The etesians are periodic winds, sometimes named meltemia, in Greek μελτέμια, or meltem in Turkish. These strong, dry north winds of the Aegean Sea blow from about mid-May to mid-September and sometimes may last for days without a break. They are dangerous to sailors because they come up in clear weather without warning and can blow at 7–8 Beaufort. Some yachts and most inter-island ferries cannot sail under such conditions. However, they often provide a good, steady sailing wind favoured by leisure sailors and windsurfers. A kite surfing weekend on Lemnos Island in the Northern Aegean Sea became a ten-day windy vacation as the Meltemi blew black clouds from the north and rose the seas. Ferry services were suspended until further notice. Stuck on an island, becoming the wife of a storm, allowing the gusts to navigate my camera, a series of photographs is investigating love and fear in an imaginary reading of a mythic story.

BEFORE THE STORM

A LOVE STORY