Raphael Shammaa

I was born in Cairo, Egypt. At the ripe age of seventeen, having completed my secondary studies, I boarded a ship for Marseille.  

After a stint at L’Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, I packed my bags and headed for photography school in Vevey, Switzerland. I completed a six-month course and got myself hired by the French magazine Marie-Claire in Paris.  

I moved to New York in 1961 feeling home sick and heartbroken, with two hundred dollars in my pocket as my stake in a new life in America. After a while assisting other photographers I decided on a radical career change, a different path forward: I needed to make a living. Things went well enough after that.

Years have passed and I have now been free from having to think in terms of income and survival, and back to doing what makes my blood run - photography. It took a while, but I am finally there.