Elia Photo Service

It’s hard to say which is more beautiful: the story behind how this photography shop came to be, or the thousands of stunning black-and-white photographs on sale. Elia Kahvedjian, born in 1910, lost his entire immediate family of ten in the Armenian genocide, as well as the majority of his extended family. He died in 1999, but his memory and eye for beauty lives on in this shop run by his son, Eli. After stumbling upon thousands of negatives in his father’s attic in 1987 (which Elia claimed were the products of a fruitless hobby), Eli dedicated his life to preserving and printing his father’s works. Not only have the images served as a source of remembrance for Elia’s family and artwork for visitors, but his photographs provide a history of Jerusalem and Palestine; he captured the architecture of the cities in the 1920’s-30’s, and documented many historical moments, like when the German Graf Zeppelin blimp floated over Jerusalem in 1931. Eli sells and will autograph a copy of his photography book, Jerusalem Through My Father’s Eyes, and a selection of images are available for purchase online.