Kobi Kalmanovitz was born in Beer Sheva (1953), served in a military band as a pianist and after his military service went to London for art studies at St.Martin's Scool of Art. He moved and stayed in Paris for about a year and practiced photography as an autodidact. Then he returned to London and graduated with honors in the Photography Department of Ealing School of Art.

He began his professional activities in Israel as a commercial and industrial photographer in 1980. In the early 1990s, he made a turn and moved to photograph magazine portraits. He worked for about 3 decades as freelance with the leading newspaper additions in the country, known for his unique style and recognized as one of the leading portrait photographers in Israel.

Taught in the Visual Arts Center in Beer Sheva, the Ramat Hasharon Art Seminary and WIZO Haifa.

Presented at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art in a group exhibition of contemporary Israeli photography, at Beit Hatfutsot, at the Museo Das Peregrinacions, Santiago de Compostela - Spain, at the first international photography festival and local testimony.

Repented in 1992 - one of Chabad's Hassids.