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Held Ground

Held Ground is a portrait of the Serengeti kopjes, granite islands rising out of a sea of grass, made through the animals that live on them. For lions the rock is shade, a lookout over the plain, a hidden place for cubs. Black and white, printed in silver gelatin.

Awards

Photographer of the Year Contest

2026

Bronze

Wildlife

Professional

Held Ground

Held Ground is a portrait of the Serengeti kopjes, granite islands rising out of a sea of grass, made through the animals that live on them. For lions the rock is shade, a lookout over the plain, a hidden place for cubs. Black and white, printed in silver gelatin.

About Artist

Vasilis Moustakas

Vasilis Moustakas is a fine art photographer based in Thessaloniki, Greece. He has been drawn to the animals of Africa since he was a child, and he keeps going back to photograph them. His work comes from Kenya, Botswana and Tanzania, and also from Iceland, Yosemite and Lake Kerkini in northern Greece. He works in sustained bodies of work rather than single images. Nothing is staged or arranged. For him, photography is a form of meditation: the way he sees the world, and the way his thoughts pass into the pictures. Being out there is where he is most alive, and the work carries that back. Each image is built from three equal parts. The moment in the field is the foundation. Post-production takes the image where he wants it to go. The print finishes it. He works mostly in black and white, for its weight and for the sense of permanence he wants the images to hold. His current project, Held Ground, is a portrait of the Serengeti kopjes, the granite outcrops that rise out of the grass, made through the animals that live on them. It is being printed in silver gelatin, a traditional process chosen so the work lasts.

Vasilis Moustakas

Photographic Areas of Focus

Landscapes, Minimalism, Nature, Wildlife

Location

Greece

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