When I started taking the series of photographs of the naked young men and animals, I had this idea of photographing a youth upon whose chest I would place some snails to slither on.
Because I sometimes find my models where I do not expect to, at an unsuspected time and place, I was prepared for this session and I had bought a few dozen Cretan snails, which I had left to roam freely over my bathroom walls, and diligently fed with bran and greenery until I could find a suitable model.
But none of the young men that I knew were willing to pose for this picture, and I was beginning to get frustrated when I suddenly met a Greek-Albanian boy, with a very beautiful face, tawny hair and innocent look. He was the ideal model for me and miraculously I had no problem getting him to accept horned mollusks crawling over him, nor was he put off by their slime.
It was February of 1995. I photographed him for two days, for several hours at a time, with medium format black-and-white and color film but also with slides. In many photographs, apart from the snails, I had also added some ivy twigs on his body and I think the combination was satisfactory.
These photographs quickly became known since they were displayed at numerous exhibitions, printed in books and republished by the press.
Then I met Edward Albee in 2002, and the first words that he said to me were: “When are you going to photograph me with snails on my chest?” Of course, he was joking, and I never photographed him in that way, but I did take many other photographs of him, because after that day we became connected by a warm friendship that was invaluable to me.
A year later, John Wood, a good friend, poet and art critic, who was editor of 21st Editions, asked Albee to write a brief text for my photographs for them to be published in the book Flesh and Spirit, and in February 2003 Albee wrote a poem entitled Another Narcissus for one of the photographs in the series I had taken with the youth and the snails.
The years passed and, when I reread the poem, written in Albee’s characteristic style, I was inspired with images for new photographs which I thought could form the subject of a small book.
This time my model was a Greek whom I found through an Athens agency and photographed on three different days, now with a digital camera. I tried to imitate the old shots but took some new ones, too; all, I think, in the spirit of the poem. It was February of 2011.
I then showed the photographs to John Wood, and he gladly wrote the foreword of the book, which will be out again in February 2017. Edward Albee was able to see the book’s mockup, but passed away before he could see it printed.
Dimitris Yeros
Edward Albee & Dimitris Yeros, Another Narcissus
Published by Phyllo Editions
