Amateur Greek photographer Vassilis Gekas from Melbourne has won the Loupe Award, a major international photography contest.
Daily newspapers in Australia, Britain, the U.S.A, the major television networks and special magazines cited his work. Working as a private employee in the morning, and as a photographer in his spare time, the self-taught Gekas said he believed that he “born to be an artist”.
Along with his wife, Nicoletta, he started with portraits of their daughter Athena when she was only 2-1/2-years old.
Friends who were photographers and artists said they were impressed and urged him to enter competitions to show his work and he won his first event. From CBS of New York to CNN of Turkey and from Australia to the Netherlands, Gekas has been giving interviews while pictures of his now 5-year-old daughter are everywhere.
He said his inspiration was the Dutch school of painting because he was touched by the light, the colors, the expressions. Most of all he enjoyed the fact that Greek media promoted his work, and the Dutch journal Algemeen Dagblad dedicated a whole article to him.
He described his daughter as an “excellent model” and says: “She is my muse. Athena loves to change costumes. She seems to have fun.”
Gekas says he is very proud of his Greek origin and that his daughter goes to Greek school. He says he wants in a few months to go to Greece and photograph the villages of his parents, who came from Ioannina in Epirus.
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