STEVE J. DRAKOS  | | |  PHOTOGRAPHY

Original and Controversial Art Photos by SJD. Photographer, Writer, Punkrocker & Techno Musician

"True glory, consists in not adapting your spirit and your talent to empty contemporary trends and low contemporary standards" — Steve J. Drakos, Bohemia, Europe, 2025

Steve J. Drakos

SJD Presentation by Prof. EGIDIO MARIA ELEUTERI
Eleuteri Art Gallery, Rome, Italy

"The etymology of the word photography comes from the greek: light (phos) and writing (graphé). Already around 1813 the Frenchman Nièpce began to study possible improvements to the lithographic techniques, and in 1829 he founded with Louis Daguerre, already known for his diorama, a society for the development of photographic techniques. In 1839 the patent Daguerre was presented, called the daguerreotype; and from that moment the photographic reproduction begins. We must remember that in previous centuries, when photography did not exist, it was practically mandatory to copy (almost always in pencil on paper) the masterpieces of the great old masters to show the story of their beauty. For this reason there are thousands of designs that reproduce known works of art (such as fragments of the Sistine Chapel and the Raphael Rooms, or other great masters of the past) that a simplistic observation may suggest that these drawings were studies or the first ideas on paper of the works depicted; in fact a closer examination proves that the paper used for the design had been made at least one hundred years later. In order to avoid these errors of attribution in almost all the prints there is always the words "Bianchi designed, Rossi engraved". Towards the second half of the Nineteenth Century photography began to spread, obviously among the upper classes who were able, through a mechanical process, to document the life of their time and to portray, for posterity, a world that was inexorably going to dissolve. It is very fascinating to watch these old photos that are the precise documentation and testimony of what life was the end of the Nineteenth Century. Among the huge photographic deposits we can discover shots that tell the facts of the time: the life of the nobles, of the high bourgeoisie and of the people; the official ceremonies, the current pink and black chronicle events, the daily life, the streets, squares, angles, places, shops, the factories and landscapes that have disappeared today. And we owe to the photography studies, such as the Alinari, the documentation of over a century and a half of society's life. But with the recent launch of the digital system, of extremely low cost, and the spreading via the Internet, we descend very often into mediocrity. We lose the beauty, the poetic narrative, the play of light, the color contrasts, the refinement of the moment, the image as a profound harmony and the deep lyricism as a canticle of beauty...
And in this new world, the one of the modest photo that tells the mediocrity of every day's routine, thankfully some real creators like our Steve J. Drakos arise and transform a mechanical process into art. Steve J. Drakos vivifies, recovering for the memory aspects of our real life; landscapes of silent rivers that suddenly sing the praises of nature; vestiges that, photographed, bring back from the depths of each one of us the memory of the greatness, of myth and history. They are poetic tales created by him that transmute a place, an event, a landscape, a monument in ruins, in what is the fleeting moment. And it is just these images, that depict the typical appearance of everyday life, which, impressed with a masterly and poetic creative act are making the artistic ability of Drakos shine, changing them into tales of art. Another important aspect of the art of Steve J. Drakos refers to images that relate moments of erotic passion, which, while portraying the tensions that often arise from our own depth, we do not want some times to let them emerge; perhaps for the religious and family education that we have received, but that still exist in everyday life. These stories allow us to glimpse the eroticism that some call perverse, but in reality we must never forget that each of us is free, and therefore judge of certain behavioral choices. It's absurd to repress what someone likes to do in their own home. It's profoundly right for each one of us to have the will to live the tensions and experiences that we desire to exercise; obviously, with a consenting partner. Steve J. Drakos can face this sublimation of the unconscious and recount it through photography without ever falling into real pornography, or in a message of exaltation of certain practices. He succeeds, masterfully, in capturing a moment of truth and imprint it in the photography plate with a rare skill, aware of telling only one hidden part of the eros that lives in us. Eros and Thanatos are the hinge-Gods of the great door of life. Everything that always stirs in man's everyday life, since the dawn of times, was written and narrated by the great classical philosophers both Greek and Roman." — E. M. Eleuteri, Rome, 2015

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