Michael Katakis

The Eyes Have It

Written by William Hjortsberg

Regarding Photographer Michael Katakis

Nearly everyone agrees that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” but when we’re talking about art, there is an important corollary to this old dictum: beauty must first be in the eye of the creator. Nowhere is this more self-evident than in the art of photography, for the camera is both an extension and a replica of the artist’s eye. The camera functions like a human eye, with a lens and an iris and the image projected upside-down onto a film emulsion which approximates the photosensitivity of the retina. Taking pictures should be as easy as seeing. The difference between snapshots and art is in the eye peering through the viewfinder.

Looking at the photography of Michael Katakis, we are clearly seeing with the eyes of an artist. It’s not just the perfectly balanced compositions, or the delicate chiaroscuro, ranging from the deepest, most mysterious black, through an incredible variety of grays, to a white of such purity the viewer perceives it first as an emotional reaction. These visual qualities are all present, as they are in the work of Weston or Steichen or Ansel Adams. We expect no less of any fine craftsman. But something more lives in his pictures; something ineffable.

This mysterious component infusing Michael Katakis’s work has nothing to do with the accuracy of his eye. It has everything to do with the fullness of his heart. A rich compassion is on display here, whether in the mysterious study of architect May Lin and her cat which is included in the National Portrait Gallery study collection, or illuminating the tranquility of an old Chinese fisherman waiting beside still water or the joyous, laughing, impudent faces of African children, or, most profoundly, in the latent sorrow imbuing Katakis’ emotionally devastating series on the Vietnam Veterans memorial in Washington D.C. Much more than the artist’s eye is involved in these pictures. His soul is deeply committed as well. This commitment is made manifest not just in the powerful photographs of Maya Lin’s tragically beautiful wall and the mourners searching for familiar names among the thousands etched on its gleaming black surface, but in a seemingly innocent sequence taken in a remote West African village in Sierra Leone. Here, Katakis, in his series A Time and Place Before War, captured the simple everyday life of tranquil people: the jaunty smile and twinkling eyes of a mimicking the photographer with play cameras made from straw. At face value, these pictures would be of importance for the artful way in which they preserve a way of life as foreign to modern America as vignettes produced by a time machine, but there is another poignant dimension in knowing that ten years of dreadful civil war has doubtless erased this village from the earth along with most of its inhabitants. These laughing faces may be grimacing skull today. Their lost happiness survives now only as enduring art.

Michael Katakis works with a minimum of equipment. In the tradition of Henri Cartier-Bresson, he uses a simple 35 mm Leica M6, a small assortment of lenses and available light. He approaches his subjects with reverence risking the demands of intimacy in return for the magic of a shared experience. There are no commands, no complicated stage directions. It’s all about the light, how it falls across a face or accentuates a cheekbone. How the contrasting shows emphasize the mood he seeks. The effects Michael Katakis derives from his subtle palette are extraordinary.

There is a common misapprehension that photography is easy, as simple as pushing a button. Just as everyone who has ever written a heartfelt letter fanciers he has a novel lurking dormant within, so too, anyone tripping the shutter of a Polaroid imagines himself to be a photographer. The truth of the matter is somewhat more demanding. Story -tellers and image-makers are born, not made. Training only enhances one’s craft, it has never turned a technician into an artist. Technique is often confused with art. A high level of skill in any endeavor always remains impressive. But, technical facility shows only on the surface, true art lies much deeper. Michael Katakis is an artist. He was born with eyes that see beyond the superficial. His vision looks past the actual image, searching for the soul of humanity itself.