I was born on 3rd September 1954 in Brussels and there was at that time no talk of digital photography. And even so 20 years later, when I was lucky enough to enjoy lectures by the late Hubert Grooteclaes, a brilliant photographer from Liege, nobody yet understood that photography as an art was on the verge of an extraordinary revolution.

I have been fortunate enough to be born into an artistic family. But my maternal grand-father, Jacques Collas, an impressionist painter (http://homeusers.brutele.be/elbo) is the one whose influence most determined my early attraction towards forms and lights. I believe that his works still influence mine today, on a more or less conscious level.

For a long time, I could not find the way to obtain a proper command of colours, and thus I only worked with black and white. This very rigorous discipline proves to be an excellent school and pushes ever further the capture of light at its most subtle. But the extraordinary possibilities of creation offered by digital photography, to which I took keenly very early on, immediately seduced me.

This is, I hope, the beginning of a new and fruitful adventure.

Jean-Michel Elbo - Translation : Anne Ducastel.