An extreme close-up portrait of an older man with tousled grey hair, bushy eyebrows and a thick white moustache, looking directly into the camera with a faint, mischievous smile. Platon’s high-contrast black-and-white photography accentuates every wrinkle and weathered feature, transforming the expressive face into an intricate landscape of lines, textures and shadows.

Location: Paros, Greece

PAROS: Platon Pays Tribute to the Cycladic Island of His Childhood

Words by Eric David

For New York-based photographer Platon, the Greek island of Paros is more than an ancestral home, it is where he found his most enduring teachers, in photography as in life. In PAROS, his most personal photography book to date, the celebrated portraitist revisits the island that shaped his life and artistic vision through four decades of photographs. Published by MW Editions in October 2026, the monograph brings together 225 black-and-white photographs, from portraits of islanders whose individuality, wisdom and humanity have stayed with him to candid scenes of daily life. At once a family memoir, a record of a disappearing way of life and a meditation on belonging and mortality, the book is, at its heart, about mastering the art of living, the most valuable lesson the island taught him.

Photographed from behind, an elderly woman’s silver hair is gathered into an elaborate bun secured with hairpins, with fine strands escaping around her head. Against a stark white background, Platon transforms an everyday hairstyle into an almost abstract composition of spiralling lines and delicate textures, highlighting the beauty of an otherwise overlooked detail.

Photography © 2026 Platon.

An intimate, tightly cropped portrait of an elderly woman whose deeply lined face and loosely gathered grey hair fill the frame. Every wrinkle, stray strand and subtle variation in skin texture is rendered with extraordinary clarity against a white background, while her direct, unwavering gaze lends Platon’s stark black-and-white photograph a powerful sense of presence and individuality.

Photography © 2026 Platon.

The cover of PAROS, Platon’s photography book published by MW Editions, features a striking black-and-white portrait of a young girl wearing an elaborate floral headdress and delicate lace veil. Set against a pristine white background, her direct, contemplative gaze exemplifies the photographer’s distinctive approach to portraiture, combining graphic simplicity with emotional intensity.

Book cover. PAROS by Platon. Courtesy of MW Editions. Photo © 2026 Platon.

Born in London to a Greek father and English mother, Platon spent part of his childhood in Greece, forging a lasting attachment to Lefkés, the mountain village where his uncle Stelios, whom the book is dedicated to, restored a house with a courtyard open to the community. His father, an architect, writer and artist, was another formative presence. Platon remembers watching him sketch villagers, doorways and stone walls in pen and ink, using uncompromising black and white without intermediate tones. That visual economy profoundly informed the stark contrasts of Platon’s own work.

Three young girls stand shoulder to shoulder in traditional Greek festive attire, their embroidered dresses and floral headscarves creating an intricate interplay of patterns and textures. Against a stark white background, their differing expressions, from direct, unwavering gazes to closed eyes, lend Platon’s meticulously composed portrait a quiet individuality and dignity.

Photography © 2026 Platon.

An older man wearing a flat cap, thick-rimmed glasses and a moustache rests his head against one hand while seated at a lace-covered table. Surrounded by family photographs, flowers and religious imagery, the modest domestic interior provides a richly layered backdrop, lending Platon’s atmospheric black-and-white portrait an intimate sense of personal history.

Photography © 2026 Platon.

When Platon discovered photography in 1986, he began photographing the people of his childhood world—farmers and fishermen, shopkeepers and priests, village elders and children—returning to Paros several times a year. Uncle Stelios helped him seek out what he called "good quality people", an affectionate description of the individuals at the heart of the book. Having photographed more world leaders than any other photographer, Platon’s subjects in PAROS could scarcely be further removed from the corridors of power, yet they are no less captivating.

Some appear against a pure white backdrop that has become his signature, others against enveloping black; some fill the frame with faces whose wrinkles and weathered skin resemble intricate landscapes, while others are captured in full, their posture and bearing equally revealing. Carefully composed, at times almost sculptural, the portraits retain a disarming naturalness while conveying a quiet dignity. An elderly man's direct gaze, a girl crowned with flowers and lace, an older couple leaning together, each establishes an immediate, almost intimate connection with the viewer, an effect Platon attributes to "the combination of graphic simplicity and the power of the spirit and soul".

A double-page spread from Platon’s PAROS captures children dressed in ornate ecclesiastical robes, holding a Greek flag and ceremonial religious standards inside a church. Richly textured fabrics, solemn expressions and dramatic contrasts between deep shadows and bright highlights lend the grainy black-and-white photograph a sense of intimacy and ritual significance.

PAROS by Platon. Courtesy of MW Editions. Photo © 2026 Platon.

An extreme close-up portrait of an older man with tousled grey hair, bushy eyebrows and a thick white moustache, looking directly into the camera with a faint, mischievous smile. Platon’s high-contrast black-and-white photography accentuates every wrinkle and weathered feature, transforming the expressive face into an intricate landscape of lines, textures and shadows.

Photography © 2026 Platon.

The weathered headstock of a traditional Greek bouzouki is photographed against a pure white background, its eight metal tuning pegs arranged symmetrically around worn wood and intricately detailed mechanisms. Loose strings curl into delicate, irregular loops, introducing a spontaneous graphic element to Platon’s otherwise precise composition and suggesting the instrument’s long history of use.

Photography © 2026 Platon.

The lowered head of a donkey occupies one side of this tightly cropped black-and-white photograph, opposite the muscular forearm and hand of a man holding its chain and a length of rope. Set against a stark white background, the composition emphasises the contrasting textures of animal hide, human skin and metal links, evoking traditional agricultural life on Paros.

Photography © 2026 Platon.

Interspersed among the portraits are more spontaneous scenes of daily life: children in religious processions, villagers in modest domestic interiors, agricultural labour, fishermen and donkeys, church rituals and quiet moments of rest. Grainy textures, occasional softness and slightly tilted framing lend these photographs an immediacy distinct from the portraits' formal precision. They evoke an island defined as much by communal rituals as by its landscape.

Two places recur throughout the book: Lefkés' kafeneion, nicknamed the village "parliament", and Kaparos Monastery. At the former, Platon sketched and later photographed regulars gathering over coffee, backgammon and cigarettes; once a centre of communal life, it has since become a private residence, once-open door now bearing a “keep out” sign. At the monastery, Platon found friendship and solace in its caretaker, Ioannis Kaparos, a self-taught poet who cultivated gardens, welcomed visitors with flowers and believed people should coexist like the stones of the island's dry walls.

A bearded man in dark robes leans towards a wall-mounted tap, washing his hands along a traditional monastery corridor. The dramatically angled composition draws the eye along the patterned stone paving and rhythmically spaced doorways, while deep shadows, stark highlights and pronounced grain give the black-and-white photograph a raw, documentary immediacy.

Photography © 2026 Platon.

An elderly woman stands in the doorway of a rustic kitchen, surrounded by hanging metal pots, cooking utensils and patterned wall tiles. Cracked plaster, worn furnishings and uneven surfaces reveal the modest character of the traditional island home, while Platon’s grainy black-and-white composition frames the woman within successive layers of domestic space.

Photography © 2026 Platon.

A close-up of a heavily worn leather boot resting on rough wooden planks, beneath the rolled cuff of a workman's trousers. Frayed laces, cracked leather and scuffed surfaces bear the marks of prolonged use, which Platon’s uncompromising black-and-white treatment emphasises, turning this humble everyday object into a textured portrait of manual labour and rural life.

Photography © 2026 Platon.

Platon's camera also lingers on details easily overlooked: a worn shoe, a donkey's muzzle, lace and embroidery, woven rush seating, hanging octopus, votive plaques, wild plants and weathered surfaces. In the book's square format, full-bleed photographs occupy individual pages, while wide compositions extend across double-page spreads. Elsewhere, two images face each other in suggestive dialogue: an elderly face echoes the grain of an old wooden door; patterned clothing finds a counterpart in the intricate structure of a wild plant, revealing how inseparable the island’s people, objects and landscape are.

The alternation between close-ups and wide views, poised portraits and unguarded moments, gives the book its visceral lyricism, heightened by deep black shadows and near-blinding white highlights. Underlying this visual intensity is an awareness of time's passage. Many of Platon's subjects have died; familiar places have changed hands or purpose. On a recent visit, he photographed an elderly tailor and his wife, Katerina, who observed that happiness exists in moments rather than as a permanent condition—the tailor died two weeks later. Yet children still play outside his uncle's former house, just as Platon once did.

An extreme close-up of a sea urchin reveals a dense constellation of long, needle-like spines radiating from its rounded body. Isolated against a pure white background, the marine creature becomes an intricate study of geometry, texture and contrast, its organic structure taking on an almost graphic quality through Platon’s stark black-and-white photography.

Photography © 2026 Platon.

A close-up of a traditional Greek tama, a metal votive offering embossed with a human eye and framed by an ornate decorative border. Isolated against a white background, the plaque’s reflective, scratched surface and intricate relief are rendered in striking black and white, highlighting the craftsmanship and devotional symbolism of this enduring Orthodox tradition.

Photography © 2026 Platon.

A lament for a vanishing world, PAROS is also an homage to the people whose humour, resilience and wisdom helped shape Platon’s understanding of a life well lived, and an invitation to engage more deeply with one another and the physical world around us.

Three octopuses hang over a weathered wooden rail to dry, their long tentacles cascading against a pitch-black background. Platon’s high-contrast black-and-white photograph accentuates the intricate patterns of their suckers and the sculptural arrangement of their limbs, transforming a traditional practice of Greek island life into an arresting, almost abstract composition.

Photography © 2026 Platon.

The launch of PAROS will take place alongside PEOPLE POWER, Platon’s first major museum retrospective in Athens, Greece.

PEOPLE POWER — Platon
5 November 2026 - 31 January 2027
Benaki Museum, Pireos 138, Athens

An elderly couple sit closely together at a rustic table, their heads gently touching in a tender, unguarded gesture. A patterned coffee cup anchors the foreground, while the stark white background isolates their intertwined figures. Platon’s intimate black-and-white portrait conveys a sense of affection, vulnerability and shared history through their expressions and body language.

Photography © 2026 Platon.