As fate would have it, the city brought him into the realm of photography, and later, screen playwriting and television production.

Some of his major breakthroughs were as production photographer for a slew of blockbuster feature films like “Angel Heart,” “Once Upon a Time in America,” “Torch Song Trilogy” and other high brand T.V.C’s.

More than 25 solo and 15 group exhibitions around US and Europe earned Kontaxis numerous prestigious accolades and grants. Some of the most prominent being the “Award of Excellence” by Newsweek magazine and “Award of Merit” by Time-Life.

Athr Gallery opened his solo photography exhibition last Wednesday, in collaboration with the Greek Consulate.

“The exhibition has two photograph series by Yorghos: One series is shot in Coney island in New York and the other in his hometown of Greece,” said Hamza Serafi, co-founder of Athr Gallery.

“We see this exhibition as a form of sharing experiences and knowledge. We are happy to introduce such a photographer’s work to our society here. It is a way of initiating dialogue with other cultures,” he added.

The starkly divergent series strongly appears to portray the reflections of his self-imposed exile in the hustle of New York City in striking opposition with the plain, yet inspiring contrast of tranquil in the island of Greece.

The series demonstrates the simplest human expressions captured in their wholesomeness. With grave poignancy in black and white photographs, he reflects the desperate loneliness, destituteness, penury and idleness of New- Yorkers during the period of economic recession. It is a portrayal of the state of homelessness in its grand simplicity shaming the most impoverished surroundings.

With a sense of abandonment in the paths of everyday roads, rusted vestiges of the cityscape and the illusion of the American dream, there is a heart-breaking celebration of togetherness, love and endearment. In unpretentious moments of festivity by children, friends and lovers, it lends a compelling atmosphere of hope and desire by the human spirit.

The second series of his landscape photography shot in Greece is depictive of the enticing beauty of the island.

The photographic illustration of his hometown draws a sharp distinction — in comparison with the sullen gray of Coney Island — in its pacifying colors of pastel-shaded island architecture, turquoise colored waters and reflections of the blue skies.

The imagery of the anchored boats, lined against the backdrop of the small island-town, the fishermen and their trade-apparatus, of nets and stray cats captured in all their glory is symbolic of the continuity and flourish of life at the island.

Each photograph yearns a certain desire to move back in the past or plunge into the future, reminiscent perhaps to him of his home-land with an over-whelming desire to return to the rustic way of life, with abandoned doors and quiet alleys beckoning his return.

Kontaxis embarked upon that odyssey to the island of Syros after a two-year long, almost fatal, battle with cancer, some 25 years ago.

He died last year in Athens, Greece at the age of 63 from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, leaving behind a legacy of reflections in dusks and dawns and of hope in the midst of hopelessness.

His is a story of the traverses between two ways of life: of complexity and abandonment and of simplicity and belonging. The series of photographs on display at the exhibition are priced between SR3,700 and SR5,300.

“My whole purpose as an artist, is to touch people on a large scale,” Kontaxis once said.