My name is Anthony Lourens Papanikolaou and I was born on 13th October 1980 in Athens. My Nationality lies between two of my beloved places, the village of “Lake Zaravina” in the North of Greece and the coastal City of Durban and its magnificent wild coastline in South Africa.
My first camera was a gift to me from my lovely Grandmother Evthokia at the age of 16 years old. I spent my childhood and teenage years between South Africa, Greece and London.
In London I created my first montage with a camera (handy-cam digital 8, VCR machine and stop motion.)
At this time my passion took over and I filmed everything I saw. As time passed and with constantly learning new techniques I started making my first videos combining my immense involvement with canoeing and kayaking and a love for the rivers and sea. Whilst taking part in several National sporting events I imagined the wonderful pictures that could be done in this field therefore it was only a matter of time before my passions combined, came to fruition.
From 2006 I worked professionally with photography and videography especially with filming sporting events, teasers for coming events, commercials, weddings, and other private events.
FREESOUL PRODUCTION started in 2006. The birth of the name FREESOUL came about when a friend, during kite surfing shouted out to me “FREESOUL”! and his explanation was that he saw me as someone with a free soul and a free spirit.
With all of these strange coincidences, love of nature and knowing that human endeavour will always remain at the mercy of Mother Nature, my daily thought starts and ends with this:
“ONE PICTURE, A THOUSAND WORDS”.
