A life in Photography

In a career spanning 35 years Peter has seen his photography art work finds its way into private and public collections in Australia and overseas, including the National Gallery of Australia, the Powerhouse Museum the Museum of Contemporary Art and the New South Wales Parliament.

Peter Elfes was born in Sydney and grew up in the inner city suburb of Darlinghurst. Influenced and inspired by his father, a photojournalist who emigrated from Greece in the 1950’s, he developed a strong connection with the art of photography from an early age.

After working in his father’s studio for a few years, Peter began work in 1981 at Freeman Studio in Sydney, the second oldest, still running photographic studio in the world, and
became its manager. In 1991, he left Freeman Studio and moved to New York to further
his knowledge of the art of photography. Returning to Sydney in1992, he began working
as a freelance photographer and was the official photographer for the Sydney Gay and
Lesbian Mardi Gras Association for ten years.

Peter has a longstanding interest in environmental and social documentary photojournalism.
He has a personal dedication to people and nature as the subjects of photographic essays and
an enthusiasm for the value of the photographic medium in highlighting the importance of preserving natural heritage around the globe. 

Recently he travelled to remote areas in Australia and the South Pacific and returned with dramatic photographic essays of long treks through diverse environments and meetings with Indigenous people. Peter's Lake Eyre Series and other photo projects have been internationally published in books and magazines. 

In 2011 Peter Elfes was awarded 1st prize in the New South Wales Plein Air Photography Award for his photograph of the Barrier Range in North West New South Wales. To view a slide show of the lakes transition over the past 3 years click here Please click here to arrange viewing or purchase of your piece of history.

 

To me photography is an art in observation

I see the abstract forms of nature,

like nature's poetry and the more time I spend in nature,

the more I understand her poetry.