Con Papakonstantinos (also known as Kosta in Greek), does not go unnoticed with his long beard and the calm tone of his voice. A father of 8 children and an active member of Melbourne’s Greek community, he carries a number of stories from his homeland, Greece, and from his second country.
Stories that may not have been recorded in the official history books of Australia’s Hellenism, however, are equally important in recording and understanding the evolution and progress of the Hellenes in Antipodes.
For decades, his photo studio (once know as "Hioni Photo Studio") was one of Greek Community’s iconic treasures, located in Victoria Parade, in Melbourne's inner-city suburb of Fitzroy, close to the first Greek Orthodox Church of Victoria "The Holy Church of The Annunciation of Our Lady".
Hundreds of couples and thousands of Greek Australians would walk through the doors purely to stand in front of the lens that Mr. Papakonstantinos held, posing for what could possibly be the most important moment in their lives; their wedding.
Photographer Con Papakonstantinos (L). Source: Supplied
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An injustice that leads him to Australia
Mr. Papakonstantinos was born and raised in Kteni; a village nearby Kozani, located in the northern region of Greece. His family ran a dairy business.
In the early 1960s, the then-young Papakonstantinos was released from the Army. As he told SBS Greek, “there was a crisis with cheese and dairy products at that time. Many changes were introduced to the costs, which brought drastic changes in the industry’.
Many traders who could not cope with the increased costs of these changes, were financially destroyed after borrowing huge sums of money from the banks.
“In fact, there were even suicides among the dairy producers”, Mr. Papakonstantinos told SBS Greek.
Photographer Con Papakonstantinos with his family in front of the photo studio in Fitzroy, Melbourne. Source: Source: Supplied: Papakonstantinos Family
And his migration journey started there, at his father dairy business with the following life-changing story:
"We bought the milk from a village, of which I had made an agreement with. A contract, back in the day, was when one man was giving his word”, Mr. Papakonstantinos says.
"All but one of the producers brought the milk to my father. One producer sold his lot to one of our competitors because he was offered him more money, with the intention to ruin our agreement with the rest of them”.
“I took all the cheese we had, hopped on to my tractor, and drove a distance of 150km from Kozani to Thessaloniki where I sold the lot at a very good price".
"The man who attempted to ruin the agreement couldn't sell his milk. He came to our home to complain to my father because he believed that it was my fault that his business was ruined, in other words, his failure”.
Mr. Papakonstantinos’ father, an honorable man, bought the milk from the producer. “Since you collaborate and work with strangers and not with your children, I am leaving,” he told to his father and left his home.
A Greek-style wedding photo in the '70s, Melbourne. Source: Supplied
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With the money he made, he went to Athens and from Piraeus, he took the ship to Australia.
It was August 6, 1968, when he arrived in Perth, Western Australia with "Australis" and then continued to Melbourne three days later. It was the second last journey of this famous ship.
Love for photography
Mr. Papakonstantinos’ love for photography began when he worked as a street vendor in the villages of Kozani. Amongst other items, he was selling plastic cameras for 28 drachmas.
"The first photos I took were so vivid. People from the surrounding villages were asking me to take their photo portraits for their ID cards."
He was developing the photos films in a plain dark room without any artificial lighting. Such technology did not exist during those times in Greece. He used a pipe to capture the sunlight bringing the necessary light into a small dark space to develop the films.
“I was enslaved by the love for photography,” he told SBS Greek.
A wedding photo shot by Melbourne-based photographer Con Papakonstantinou. Source: Supplied
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The years in Australia
During his early years in Australia, he worked as a taxi driver, a bread distributor, and was even employed by a cosmetics company.
One of his first jobs as a photographer was to shoot a friend’s wedding. At that time, he had a broken arm, however, that didn't stop him from taking the photos using the other hand.
He went to print the film with the wedding photos at “Simos”, a notable and relatively expensive photo studio in Melbourne's Brunswick. The owner suggested Mr. Papakonstantinos in finding a cheaper studio to develop his prints.
When the photos were finally printed, the young Greek Australian started to work as a photographer where he was charging $100 per wedding.
“I began working at ‘Hellas Photo Studio’ owned by Gerasimos Alexandratos located in Brunswick, Melbourne. I really liked my job, I was careful and polite with my clients and that's why I always had a job."
One day, whilst driving his taxi in front of the photo studio in Victoria Parade, he met with the then owner and established photographer of the Greek community, Sarantis Hionis. It was December 12, 1973.
Mr. Papakonstantinos purchased the business for seven thousand dollars. “That’s all I had available at the time, as I was raising three children”.
“Photography was an art which appealed to me very much. Many people, colleagues, and competitors from other photo studios and photographers in the industry of Melbourne would drive by and stop to admire the front-window display that I changed every week”, he told SBS Greek.
He would photograph up to ten weddings every weekend, during those years.
Μr. Papakonstantinos was an active photographer up until 1999, even though the family started a florist business on the same premises in 1997, which then become a florist café a couple of years later.
Melbourne-based photographer Con Papakonstantinou. Source: Supplied
Unforgettable stories
We asked Mr. Papakonstantinos to share a couple of stories he recalled which had impacted him. He mentioned the following two:
"On the day of a girl’s wedding, whilst her father was going to the restroom, the groom placed his hand in his father in law’s jacket and stole his wallet.
Later that evening the perpetrator was revealed as it was captured on camera. We filmed the whole wedding, resulting in the break-up of the marriage".
"The other incident took place at a different wedding and this was during the cutting of the wedding cake. The groom during his speech says the following: “To my best man, thank you for sharing my wife last night. You can have her”.
Photographer Con Papakonstantinou with his wife Constantina. Source: Supplied
He then took his jacket and left his wedding."
Even to this day, many of Mr. Papakonstantinos' customers from his photo studio days, visit the now florist café to say "yia sou".
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NOTE: All images contained on this article website remain the property of Papakonstantinos Family. Images may not be downloaded, reproduced, copied, projected, or used in any way without express written permission from their owner. 
Photographer Con Papakonstantinou. Source: Supplied
Con Papakonstantinou's family. Source: Supplied
