[2] "He is primarily associated with large-format images of European lowlands with his characteristic low horizon lines, pale luminous colours and vast skies".
His father received a scholarship from the Villa Massimo in 1969 and his mother worked as a press photographer and Rome correspondent.
In 1986, he traveled with his father to Sicily to film the Friedrich Hölderlin's adaptation The Death of Empedocles by Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet.
The travel descriptions of father and son, together with the photographs by Elger Esser, were published by Kehrer Verlag under the title Nach Italien.
He is influenced by the Romantic paintings of the 19th century[9] and 19th-century photography, and also inspired by writers such as Gustave Flaubert, Marcel Proust and Guy de Maupassant.
[9][4][10] Using an 8×10 large format camera[9][10] His work depicts "luminous and unpeopled landscapes" with "glassy waters, still horizons[,] ancient ruins".
[10] shorelines, traditional feluccas and dahabeah sailing boats that "show off the area's mysticism, away from headlines about war and violence.