Michel Chaccour was born in Damascus, Syria in 1985. After living most of his life in Syria he moved to Montreal in 2003, where he currently resides, to complete a degree in Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at Mcgill University. He completed his academic path after graduating in Entrepreneurship, Marketing, and Finance from HEC Montreal. Michel Chaccour's interest in photography developed at a young age. Taking photographs with his dad's old camera was already a hobby at the age of 10, standing in front of a camera store's window and looking at all sorts of cameras thrilled him as a kid. Since then he enjoyed looking at and examining any photograph that came under his hands, being family portraits or magazine photos. Chaccour grew with a keen eye to the world around him and his passion for photography grew with him. A self-taught photographer, he never attended any art or photography school. Teaching himself the technical aspects of the medium and experimenting with various camera types, he slowly accomplished enough work to become noticed locally in Montreal and in his hometown, Damascus. He's expected today to become one of Syria's finest emerging photographers. Michel Chaccour was originally influenced by the works of the famous French photographers Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Doisneau whose sharp eyes and sensitivity gave them the capacity to capture the most simple daily life moments with a great sense of composition. Their photographs appeared for Michel to reach eternity through their moment, which is precisely what helped him shape his vision and inspired his work. Michel Chaccour believes in photography as a way of life and an art by which he constantly strives to exhume the beauty and reality of daily lives. The camera is a mere extension of his eye and photography is a tool for him to find meaning in life.
