Caroline Elo was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1974. Her birth name is Élő Karola Orsolya. She immigrated to the United States with her mother when she was eight years old. Her first encounter with photography was in a high school photography class. She went on to study liberal arts and photography at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, where she received her B.A. in German Studies with a minor in photography. She studied abroad for a year in Hamburg, Germany where she also photographed avidly. After graduating from Cornell, she enrolled in further photography courses at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in Providence, RI. From that period on, she first worked as an assistant to wedding photographers in Newport, RI then started shooting weddings, celebrations and portraiture on her own. Since 2006, she has lived in Prato, Italy where she continues doing wedding photography as well as work documenting celebrations such as baptisms and communions. Her strength as a photographer lies in her “letting things happen” approach and in her ability to establish an immediate rapport with her subjects. When photographing, she allows events to unfold naturally and always looks at her subject with a curious eye. She believes that the small things, the unposed moments are the most interesting and revealing about her subjects.
