About
At 16, while looking through an old trunk, Elias Kamaratos discovered a forgotten Pentax SLR camera that belonged to an uncle who died, aged 28. Together with the camera were hundreds of slides from his uncle's trips around the world. Fascinated by this pictorial record of a short life that ended tragically, he picked up the camera, learned how to load it with film and has been photographing ever since.
His studies in science education allowed him to enjoy a 21 year successful and gratifying career as a high school teacher. Over those years he never stopped photographing and experimented with different photographic techniques, genres and styles. In the days of film, when he was at university he learned to develop and print black & white in order to have full control of his photographic process.
Reading "The Element" by Sir Ken Robinson motivated him to return to university to study photograhy. Formalising his photographic knowledge he entered the age of digital photography in pursuit of his element.
When photographing, his aim is to capture that decisive moment with his camera where the elements that make up an image (composition, light, texture, colour) evoke the interest, curiosity and most importantly, the emotions of the viewer.
Often, as a viewer himself, he is drawn to and intrigued by creative images that make one take a second and third look before realising the hidden message that the photographer is trying to convey in using the medium of photography to express his thoughts across time and space. When Elias photographs, he strives to achieve the same, by trying to create images that “speak” on different levels and over many dimensions.
Today he lives with his family in Dijon, France where he runs his own Professional Photography business, ekPHOTO, offering freelance photography services but at the same time experiments with conceptual and landscape photography.