Songs from the Woods Print

George Digalakis is an accomplished photographer, specializing in Fine Art, minimal photography, through which he tries to convey the beauty of nature, with his own distinctive, black and white language. His passion for photography is harmoniously combined with his love for travel and the exploration of new landscapes and places, stimuli for the creation of his unique minimalist world. He was born and raised in Athens, Greece. A medical doctor by profession, he still lives and works in Athens. Although he has been involved in many hobbies, such as chess and diving, it took him forty years to discover his true passion for the art of photography. His first contact with photography was back in 1974, when he received a “Nettar” as a gift from his father. Since then, the camera became an integral part of his daily life. But it was only in 2009 that he found the necessary free time to study photography seriously, under the supervision of Tasos Schizas. He became acquainted with classic and contemporary photographers and realized this medium would offer him a getaway from reality and enable him to express his inner world. Photography proved to be a permanent source of inspiration and life-changing experience. Born in a country with more than 1000 islands, he developed a close relationship with the sea, and he feels that this connection is the driving force behind his love for seascapes. George rarely tries to capture the moment and finds that by ignoring reality he can best convey his inner vision and underlying emotions. Subjects that convey feelings of loneliness, isolation, and melancholy are his preferred themes, with bare trees in the water, old piers, and interesting rocks being recurring themes. Purity of space and thought, vast waterscapes, sense of echoing space, and the removal of the distracting elements, characterize his work. He does not try to tell stories, but to convey emotions. For him the point of art has never been to make a truthful copy of reality, but to create art that could help the viewer to escape the surface of reality we everyday live in and discover emotions and feelings. He sees the use of black and white as a step away from reality, and with the use of the long exposure technique, introduces the sense of passing time, eliminating the details from the background, thus highlighting his subjects. Minimalism, both as an art movement and a philosophy of life, has influenced his work.