Leading others with your passions in life.

By Sotirios C Ikonomou


My father taught me to use my camera to convey my feelings and pride.

“A picture is worth a thousand words,” a captivating truth, although I believe a picture worth a thousand feelings. All of these are tailored in a unique pattern to match the viewer’s point of view. It is as though you can feel it catching on to your unconscious, speaking that you with a visual language that cannot be spoken, but rather imprints itself on your photographic memory.
I have been passionate about photography from a very young age. My father, my first inspiration, always shared his vision with me whenever we looked through our photographic lens. This is how we inspired ourselves, and looked to motivate others.
When I was a child I studied my father, as he was shooting with his old Pentax camera, asking us kids to run, to play, and to make nice smiley faces for his shots. He would use different lenses and filters to create effects, and special themed pictures. I remember thousands of pictures that were taken, numerous shots that were developed but only few of them ever made it to our living room, where he published them with pride. He would always tell us a story about each photo, trying to convey his feelings when he took the shot, describing the momentum he felt. His messages through his pictures were his pride in our family, his commitment to fatherhood and the happiness we felt together as a family. These photos are still alive in my memories, and I can still hear their message, giving me the same feelings as back then.
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Now, I am 42 years old and a successful director in the hospitality sector. As a leader I am required to carry out my vision, and to influence the way my team members act. I aim to have them mimic my style of managing and way of thinking, and this is why it was only natural for me to embrace my passion for photography to assist me on this task.
With my pictures, I influence the behaviours of people; I pass on information, statuses and even motions. This influence is why I always wanted to be a photographer: a person that creates with the power of life, the light.
Through my compositions I show how proud I feel and the responsibility I carry for my division and for the company I work for. Not so different from my father, the composition of my pictures has shifted to emphasise  the power that each member has, showing my support, my care, our power as a division, my respect and my fatherhood to them.
Now these types of pictures are also my tools, to promote my divisions’ status and to empower my team’s pride and commitment to my vision. I always have a story to portray and to communicate the purpose that would justify the visual language, exactly as the pictures of my father in the living room of my childhood.

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