After spending his childhood in Rome, Elger Esser studied photography with Professor Bernd Becher at the Düsseldorf Arts Academy. Since 1996, Elger Esser has travelled from Germany to take colour landscape photographs (printed life-size with thick white borders) in France, Italy, Spain, Holland, and Scotland. Most of the places are by lakes or rivers.
Water is omnipresent in the œuvre of Esser, who works with a large-format camera.
Usually the horizon is straight and rather low, as in 17th-century Dutch landscape paintings. Some are of towns, particularly Italian hill towns. Even some large cities – Paris and Lyon, for instance – feature, always along rivers.
Recent exhibitions have included: Marco Vean's gallery in Milan, Italy, 2003 ; Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York, and Musée Malraux, Le Havre, France, in 2004; and Sonnabend Gallery, New York, in 2005.
 
Public collections
Guggenheim Collection
Metropolitan Museum, New York
Albert Knox Gallery, Buffalo
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
Kunsthaus, Zürich
 
Recent publications
Cap d’Antifer – Etretat, Münich, Schirmer&Mosel, 2004
Vedutas and Landscapes, Münich, Schirmer&Mosel, 2000