* Τhis text was written in 1996 and published in the catalogue of the group exhibition of photography by members of the Photography Circle entitled "The Photography Circle, Ten Years on", which took place in 1998 at the House of Cyprus in Athens.


The Photography Circle has never been, nor is, an educational establishment, despite the fact that educational work takes place in it. It set out from our desire to share the things in which we believe, and perhaps - without any specific intention on our part - it may have also developed, little by little, into a School of some kind. The unwritten ethical and aesthetic rules which express its cohesion took shape gradually and are still evolving.
We, the members of the Photography Circle, have so much respect for creative photography that we do not ask of it more than it should give us. Those things are: a) that it should fill us with joy through the process of practicing it; b) that it should allow us to hope for artistic results of higher and higher quality, and c) that it should bring us closer to other people who, as we can observe, see the world through our eyes. Whatever else it gives us (perhaps social identity, possibly a reputation, now and again a little money) will be welcome or inescapable, but always very much a corollary.
We know that even when creative photography does bring financial rewards, it is never a significant source of profit. For that reason, we respect the ways in which other people make their livings, whether by photography or otherwise, and we do not characterize them in terms of their occupations, neither do we classify them as professional or amateur photographers: we call them, and we consider them, simply "photographers".
We are pleased with the notable photographic work produced inside or outside the Photography Circle, work which is for all of us a source of inspiration but not of competition. It is not our wish that artistic ambition (which strikes some people as reasonable and others as absurd) should be transformed into competition.
We greatly admire the photography - and more generally the art - of earlier periods, to which we refer in order to create. We study in books the photography which has been and is being created around the world and we derive inspiration from it. In parallel, we appreciate, and study as far as we can, all the other arts, which cultivate our creative activities and serve as part of their basis.
The photography which we advocate and enjoy lies within a very broad framework: from realism to the dream, with intellectual and spiritual stimulation as its aim. Reality, however, in the form of even a rudimentary record, is always objectively present, though subjectively transmuted.
We do not reject photo-journalism, which deals with the description of events, applied commercial photography, which publicizes products, or the kind of photography which competes with painting on its own visual ground. We are pleased when we identify sincerity, subtleness and aesthetic quality in photography of those categories. However, we do not believe that as a rule they are areas in which the personality of the photographer and the nature of the artistic medium can be accentuated in the best possible way.
We believe that since photography is technically very easy it calls on each of us, of necessity, to set his/her own boundaries of ethical and aesthetic austerity - an austerity which in other media is usually dictated by the technique.
We are interested in working on specific themes and in presenting our work through them. However, we do not agree with the uncompromising demand of many theoreticians that the photographic work must necessarily be presented through specific subject matter. The photographer must always have freedom of choice, and thematic unity often generates itself.
We have no preference for any particular photographic subject matter or for the formulation of a specific national or cultural identity. We are interested only in the presence and the personality of each photographer. All the rest is a matter of choice for him.
Slogans, messages, symbolism and everything else that lies outside the pure photographic image are matters of indifference to us. We do not believe that philosophy, sociology or anything else expressed in words and located before, after and outside the image can be connected with art, or that art can serve the purposes of those intellectual fields with a quality comparable to that with which they serve themselves. Photographers should speak only through their photographs, in a manner which is always abstract and allusive and, at best, transcendental. We are interested in the theoretical discourse about photography and strive to cultivate it - as long as it is a discourse about art.
We are interested in thinking about the way in which photography is presented, whether in connection with the types or sizes of printing or the manner in which photographs are exhibited or published. However, we try to avoid reaching the point where the photograph ceases to function primarily as an image and exists largely as an object whose value stems principally from its external characteristics.
We avoid the temptation of creating with our minds fixed on the viewer. This would lead to works of an alluringly populist nature. We take photographs first for ourselves, then for the people we love and respect, and lastly for the public. We hope that our work is appreciated in the same order, and we hope, too, that this is the way to maintain our artistic sincerity.
We do not reject the commissioning of specific photographic works, for professional or other purposes, on condition, however, that the photographer is allowed total control over his/her criteria and choices at every stage of the photographic process. The photographer, too, should know how to resist the tendency to succumb to the desire to gain his/her ‘client's' favour.  
We do not work in order to improve the appearance of our CV's, which we believe have done art more harm than good. For that reason, we keep them low-toned and brief.
We exhibit our photographs in venues which we like and which give us a ‘warm' feeling, without necessarily being prestigious. We exhibit together - older and newer members - in order to stress our intellectual and spiritual affinity and the continuity of our artistic creation. We exhibit in our own whenever we feel we have some new work to show a public that does not know it. We also exhibit in order to sell our works, if possible. However, we do not regard these exhibitions as being the purpose of our photographic activities or of our lives.
We are willing to publish our photographs in books and, preferably, in monographs. In that way, our work can be disseminated more effectively and will last over time. We do this, too, because we believe that photography gains from brief communication with viewers repeated over time, which is not possible with exhibitions.
We see ourselves as permanent students, capable of learning from previous photographers, from our colleagues and from ourselves. For us, creative photography is, inter alias, an instrument of culture. It is possible that the future may bring about changes in our aesthetic views; we hope it has no impact on our ethical positions.