A Film Producer Trades Moving Pictures for Photographing Exotic Greek Island Landscapes

If you watch a British film made in the 1980s or 1990s, there’s a strong chance it would have been produced by Paul Raphael. Mr. Raphael backed films starring the likes of Sir Ben Kingsley, Ewan McGregor, and Matt Dillon.Yet Mr. Raphael is no longer producing films out of London; instead he is photographing rocks and caves in the hilly Greek Cycladic island of Ios, overlooking the Aegean Sea. In a twist that could have sprung from the plot of one of the movies he produced, Mr. Raphael, at the age of 68 and despite never having undergone formal photographic training, has become the artistic toast of Ios.His first ever photographic exhibition, “In the Light of the Gods,” opens next Saturday at the Gaitis-Simossi Museum, located on a hilltop overlooking the chora, or main town of the island, with a backdrop of the Mediterranean Sea. The show, featuring 30 images of Mr. Raphael’s pictures of Ios, is the first temporary solo exhibition since the musuem opened its doors in September 2024.To be clear Mr. Raphael, 68, did not stumble upon Ios, camera in hand, by chance. He first came to the island, beloved of goat-herders, fishermen and wandering hippies, in1962 when he was four years old and recalls his father, the Oscar-winning literary lion Frederic Raphael, regaling him with stories about the ancient Gods when he was a child. His late sister Sarah Raphael, an acclaimed portrait painter who died in 2001, frequently depicted Ios on canvas.After the pandemic five years ago, Mr. Raphael moved full-time to reside in the same family house he first visited in 1962 — and a new career was born. “I always liked taking pictures,” he said in an interview with the Sun. “I used to take a lot of pictures back in the early eighties when I ran London’s first ever [film] location agency. I was driving round England and Scotland and taking pictures of properties, from stately homes to council flats, to put on file. Then I got into other jobs and I stopped doing it.”Ironically the same technology, which contributed to making film producing a less worthwhile occupation for Mr. Raphael, kickstarted his new career. “With the advent of phones, I started taking more pictures during walks,” he said. “I never learned how to use a camera properly and kept resisting the need to learn how to use one.” After he got a few photographic commissions, he traded his phone in for a camera.Paul Raphael.Mr. Raphael’s pictorial capabilities quickly caught the attention of the locals. “I have a cinematic eye and I worked for 40 years in film,” he reflected. “I know what I want to see, how to frame it, how to create a subject, and how to make something tell you a story even if it’s not moving. Before I learned how to use a proper camera and how to use a proper editing system I was fiddling around on my phone and found I could make things look pretty cool. If I got inside caves witha wide angle, I could create all sorts of extraordinary images.”Paul Raphael.One influential Ios resident to have admired his work was the architect Loretta Gaitis, daughter of the legendary Greek artist Yannis Gaitis and his wife Gabriella Simossi. The gallery is named after them and extensively features the work of Gaitis who spent the last decade of his life in Ios.“His daughter saw the pictures and said, ‘Your pictures are my childhood and my soul,'” said Mr. Raphael. Indeed in a press release for the exhibition, Ms. Gaitis says, “The first temporary exhibition hosted by the museum should be a tribute to Ios…who better than Paul Raphael could bear witness to the beauty of our island homeland so truthfully and universally?”Mr. Raphael is keen to praise the beauty of his surroundings, reputedly the island where Homer was buried: “For nine months there’s no-one here in Ios and it’s absolute paradise, but there is drama every single day in the weather. Between the light and the winds and the clouds, it’s just stunning.”But he adds the visual allure of his photographs is borne out of an awareness of his relatively new home. “I know the place so well now,” he said. “I’ve been here five years and walked thousands of kilometres. I virtually know every stone, hill and tree. It’s become a very intimate relationship. I’m looking through, and at, holes and rocks that nobody knows exist in the form I’m putting them in. I’m combining all those things together with sunsets and clouds and goats….I’m relating with something eternal, with faces in the rocks that were there when Homer was living. Some of them were probably seen way back as deities or signs.”Mr. Raphael says he is endlessly surprised by what he’s sees: “It’s all about where the light is and the angle you take, but the visions are extraordinary. I found a stone which looks like a guy smoking a cigarette, complete with the nose, mouth, neck, arm, and cigarette. It’s surreal.”Paul Raphael.Another rock he encountered resembled a dinosaur:Paul Raphael.The Mayor of Ios, Gkikas Gkikas, feels similarly rapturous about Mr. Raphael’s art, stating in a press release: “This is an important cultural moment for Ios…the timeless beauty of our island is brought to life within our museum.” “In the Light of the Gods” is curated by renowned Italian gallerist and curator Jean Blanchaert.Just like his father did not aspire to inhabit the literary London or Hollywood establishments despite his immense creative success, Mr. Raphael appreciates his outsider status in Ios. “Anywhere you go that isn’t where you take for granted, you see differently,” he said. “If I were to travel to New York, I would see New York differently to someone who lives in New York…I’ll always be a foreigner but I’m about as locally adopted now as it’s possible to be.”Mr. Raphael’s credits include “Rogue Trader,” starring Ewan McGregor and “The Leading Man,” with Jon Bon Jovi. But unlike film production, Mr. Raphael’s photographic career is unsullied by commercial considerations. “The pleasure of it is I have to raise no money to take my pictures,” he said. “After 40 years of being ruled by money , when you couldn’t do anything unless you had hundreds of thousands of dollars, this is an absolute pleasure. I can go anywhere on the island. It’s an extraordinary playground.”Paul Raphael’s “Ios: In the Light of the Gods” opens at the Gaitis- Simossi Museum, Ios, from May 2- July 3

A Film Producer Trades Moving Pictures for Photographing Exotic Greek Island Landscapes

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