Profile: Rev. Petros Kipouros
You never know who you might meet in Canberra, despite the city having a reputation as the most ‘boring’ capital city in Australia. In an earlier post Canberra Doesn’t Suck, I mentioned that this is a very creative city, drawing highly skilled and diverse people from around the world to work and live here. What makes this place even more interesting, is that many people have multiple lives or histories before they come to settle in Canberra. Rev. Petros Kipouros is one such person. I came to know of Rev. Kipouros through his daughter, a student of mine at university. Most people in Canberra would know him as the priest at the Greek Orthadox Church, but he has another fascinating story to tell – of his work as a travel photographer, photographing people from all over the world.
© Rev. Petros Kipouros
His images have been reproduced in National Geographic and he has published a number of books. There are also a number of articles published online that discuss the fascinating connections between his role as a minister and that of an artist and traveller. For example, Elina Kourempana’s 2013 article titled The Sensitive Eye in NeosCosmos discusses the connections between seeing light as a photographer and seeing the light in a spiritual context. In many ways his photographic work has been influenced by the Impressionists because of his love of light as an element in his work. In the interview for NeosCosmos Rev. Kipourus said “The word photography means ‘writing with light’. It is great to ‘write’, record the light during all the times of the day and the year.” Another article by Richard Carter in the Times Record News titled Globe Trotting Greek comments that:
Kipouros has won prizes for his photography from National Geographic competitions and has had several photographic exhibitions, three in his hometown and one nearby…While he enjoys taking pictures with his Canon EOS camera of nature and landscapes, he tends to focus more on people. “People and their lives are very interesting,” he said.
You can buy his coffee table book Colourful Facebook: Father Petros on Blurb. On the Blurb website you can also see a preview of this beautiful book. Rev. Kipouros has also allowed us to publish some of these wonderful images on Geokult Travel and we very much appreciate being able to share these gorgeous pictures with you. We would also like to thank his daughter Chrysa for all her help.
