I felt deep within me that the highest point a man can attain is not Knowledge, or Virtue, Goodness or Victory, but something even greater, more heroic, and more despairing: Sacred Awe!"

from Zorba The Greek, by Nikos Kazantsakis.

I was born in December, 1974 in Beirut, Lebanon to Elias Kremesti, my Lebanese father and Ivanka, my Bulgarian mother. My last name is Greek, it's the name of a village in the island of Rhodes. It refers to the profession of making vine scaffolding. My ancestors escaped Ottoman persecution and moved to Lebanon via Mardin, Turkey. My grandma from my mother's side, Maria, is Macedonian. I like to believe that I am from the same country as Nikos Kazantzakis and that I am related to Alexander the Great. My childhood was spent in bomb-shelters in Lebanon and in queues for bread and water. It made me despise religion and politics in my teens, and turn to science and the sea for escape. I used to do a lot of fishing in Beirut and collect sea shells like the famous Phoenician Murex. My parents met in the famous Black Sea resort of Varna in Bulgaria, so the ocean is in my blood. High-school in Lebanon was Hell, I was a nerd, a book warm, top of my class, no time for girls. I found chemistry particularly fascinating. In AUB in Lebanon I pursued my passion which was Chemistry. I was also passionate about the Humanities and read a lot of Nietzsche books and I also took an Art Appreciation class. Most of my classmates were pre-Med, they wanted prestige and money... I despised them... I was looking for the Truth. I graduated and made it three times to the Honor list. Then I couldn't wait to get the hell out of Lebanon when I got a scholarship to go to graduate school in U.N.T., Denton Texas. William Arthur Ward did some PhD research there. I still remember clearly I was the only one smiling at the Beirut airport, all my family were crying because I was leaving...

In Texas, between 1996 and 1998 I earned my M.Sc. degree in Chemistry (specializing in silicon surface science and ultra pure water production, contamination detection and control). Two things happened: I had an existentialist crisis and I accepted Christ as my LORD which happened at the same time I was getting more and more disappointed in Science and the pettiness of men of science due to bad experiences with research professors. I couldn't find a job in Chemistry when I graduated in 1998, because the semiconductor market was down, so I took computer classes and became a webmaster in no time. It was the golden age of the Internet and I caught the wave. I honed my Photoshop and webdesign skills at U.N.T. then moved to Irvine, California where my friend Joe Saab was living and working. It was a memorable trip in my 1986 Chevy Camaro with T-tops driving through the surreal New Mexico and Arizona landscapes. It was a very exciting time... The future was limitless and very promising. When I crossed the Arizona-California border and saw the first palm trees, my heart leaped for joy.... I had found my home away from home...

For three years I worked as a webmaster/consultant for startups, myself and a Fortune 500. In August 2001, I was laid off after the Internet Bubble burst. I started working in a Soul Food restaurant in Sherman Oaks as a dishwasher then I became an assistant cook. In the meantime I was building a photography portfolio. During my visit to Lebanon in April 2001, before my lay-off, I took an awesome collection of photos with the manual Zenit TTL that my dad gave me. That's when I discovered my true calling in life... The invisible world of the spirit had stirred inside of me... I completed the circle... after not finding the Truth in Materialism, I lept forward into the Metaphysical which was pulling me....

For a while I tutored chemistry in Los Angeles and I pursued beauty with my camera and at night I read Rumi poetry. One of my students was Lauren Mayhiew, a singer/actress. I used to be crazy about women in general and Middle-Eastern women in particular. I lived the Bohemian life. I surfed, I fished, I photographed beautiful women, I worked odd jobs, I lived for the day.... This went on until 2004 when I became 30 years old, I had no career and I realized I need to make a change. I hitched a ride with an Israeli driving his van from LA to Manhattan, NY where I met a cute Pakistani girl. I flew back to Lebanon, got a job in Saudi Arabia as a water treatment specialist and my Water Treatment professional career took off...

Since 2006, I have lived and worked in Europe/UK my new home....

Current/Former influences: Manly P Hall, Russian literature (Dostoevsky, Bulgakov, Pushkin, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Pasternak), music and films, Jewish Kabbalah, Eckhart Tolle, the Poetry of Rumi, and the photography of Leonard Nemoy. I also went through a phase of discovering Bulgarian and Macedonian classic Literature like that of Anton Donchev and Dimitar Talev. I recently finished reading Robert Graves' books on Greek Mythology which are fascinating. His book King Jesus blew me away I highly recommend it. I am discovering, while living and working in the UK, the nobility and depth of the British Soul. The word Britain comes from Bara Tanak, meaning the Land of Tin in ancient Aramaic the language my Cana'anite ancestors spoke in the Holy Land. The ancient Phoenecians sailed to Cornwall to trade with the locals and buy Tin to make Bronze. 

I am an avid reader and I like to cook and read for a hobby. I cherish time spent with my girls and in my village home in Bulgaria (Villa Kremesti in Trankovo bei Radnevo). I love to play guitar and I have some songs recorded on my YouTube channel under Rami Elias Kremesti. As a person who has been lifted from a state of spiritual ignorance to one where I am capable of experiencing the Sacred Awe, I realized that the highest mission of a person in life is to lift him/herself and later on, others from the misery of ignorance.... I have published two books so far and the third one is under production. 

These days I work as a water treatment specialist based out of High Wycombe between London and Oxford, and I photograph mainly my beautiful girls Lulu and Krassi... I enjoy meditating at the Maritza River in Plovdiv when I am there on vacation. In the UK, you can occasionally spot me playing guitar on a park bench in Marlow or at the Costa in High Wycombe. I have recently started to hang out in Beaconsfield and Marlow too where the people are so posh without being arrogant or vain. Even the dogs are nice in Beaconsfield and Marlow I tell my friends... In Bulgaria, pet dogs are mean... street dogs are very kind...

In closing, I want to quote from Pakistani poet Muhammad Iqbal, about the importance of the aesthetic education of man:

"The moment you discover beauty in this world, you stop being a slave."

And finally, I am also inspired by a quote from Boris Pasternak, author of Doctor Zhivago:

"Literature is the art of discovering something extraordinary about ordinary people, and saying with ordinary words something extraordinary." 

.

.

Rami E. Kremesti M.Sc. - Photographer/Author/Water Treatment Specialist

Eccé Photo: Philo-Photographia

"For Love of the Sacred Awe"

High Wycombe, UK

Last updated May 17, 2022