A man and his camera

Source : ATHENS NEWS , 29/08/2008, page: A15
Article code: C13302A151
Author : MIKE SWEET

As you enter Nikos Picopoulos' camera repair workshop, the cabinets you pass containing hundreds of vintage cameras testify to the 62-year-old's fascination with the device and its technical evolution. It's also clear that an all too rare concept of old-fashioned craftsmanship and customer service remains in these rooms overlooking Lekka Street.

The mainstay of the work these days is digital and video cameras, but in today's consumer electronics market, where replacement rather than repair is the most common solution, sustaining such a business must be a challenge.

Born in Nea Smyrni in 1946, Picopoulos was drawn to mechanics at an early age. His father Dimitri, from old Smyrni (Izmir), came to Greece in the 1920s, a victim of the enforced emigration from Asia Minor. Dimitri set up a gramophone repair shop near Syntagma, and within a few years turned his attention to the growing photography market by repairing cameras. As a small child, Nikos remembers being drawn to the intricate processes of his father's trade.

"I was always trying the lathes. I loved it. I was a born mechanic," he says as we sit in conversation beside his crowded work bench, where all manner of delicate mechanical instruments, magnifiers and camera parts vie for space.

"My generation, born just after the war, is very lucky," he reflects. "We never experienced war, enforced emigration or poverty."

Throughout the immediate post-war years, Nikos' father had a burning ambition to manufacture a camera in Greece. But with limited access to materials like aluminium and metal and with the economy stagnant, it was difficult for such a project to get off its feet commercially. But, by 1953, Dimitri had drawn up detailed plans for a handmade camera that used standard 120mm film and would give 12 exposures per roll. He christened it the Picca after the family name.

"My father drove to Munich to buy the lenses," recalls Nikos. "It was the only part of the camera that did not come from Greece. In those days everything to do with photography was German."

Despite the problems of access to materials, the first Picca was produced in 1954 with a selling price of 350 drachmas. As Nikos hands me one of the precious Piccas that is still in his possession, it's clear that its elegant design was influenced by the modernist style. With a single shutter speed and just two aperture settings, it was built for easy use, folding up neatly into its brown leather case.

Between 400 Piccas were manufactured in Dimitri's small workshop, but market forces beyond his control meant the Picca's longterm sales prospects were limited. Just as the Picca appeared in Athens' shop windows, Kodak began importing cameras made of a revolutionary new material - plastic.

Kodak's equivalent of the Picca was first sold at a price of 1,000 drachmas but, on seeing the local opposition, Kodak immediately dropped the price to 450 drachmas. "My father was mad about this," says Nikos.

"The cost of production was very low for Kodak. The first Piccas sold, but my father couldn't fight Kodak. It was too big," he says.

With no loans available from the Greek banking system to provide Dimitri with the capital in order to compete, the Picca was confined to history. Nikos believes another factor was also present in the equation.

"Greece was never a country that produced mechanical items," he tells the Athens News in a tone of resignation.

"Greeks did not believe in Greek products. It was too unusual. My father became disappointed. Repairing cameras was more lucrative than producing them," he adds. "He wasn't a merchant. He was a mechanic."

Encouraged to learn German and English by his father, Nikos began following in his pioneering footsteps in earnest, studying photographic engineering in the western European centres of excellence for photographic technology. He spent two years at schools in Germany and Switzerland, subsidising his studies by working as a labourer and waiter. This first experience of life outside Greece had a considerable effect on the young Nikos.

"Nice girls," he says mischievously. "It was paradise compared to Greece, where you couldn't go out on a date in those days - oh no!"

On his return from Switzerland, Nikos worked alongside his father until beginning his military service in the mid-1960s. Nikos' skills as a photographic mechanic were soon employed by the army to help create the Army TV channel TED, the precursor of NET.

In 1975 Nikos created his own company and a year later met his future wife Phillipa, from Winchester, in England. Nikos and Phillipa were blessed with two sons, Dimitri and Philipos. Dimitri is following a career in economics in the UK after graduating from Cambridge University, while Philipos, who studied electronic engineering, works beside his father in the workshop.

A third generation is ready to advance the Picopoulos legacy.


Nikos Picopoulos in his camera repair workshop.
Photo taken by Mike Sweet