©Petros Giannakouris

Biography

Thanassis Stavrakis

He was born in Stockholm in 1973. He studied photography in 1991-1992 in Athens. He started working as a photojournalist in August 1992.

Until 1997, he worked in Greek photojournalism agencies, covering domestic and international news and sports events with assignments in the Greek region and abroad. He worked in the photography department of the newspaper Ethnos from 1997 to 1999.

In 1999-2001 he collaborated with the magazine Epsilon of the Sunday Eleftherotypia.

From November 2006 until 2010 he was an external collaborator with a permanent photographic double-page in the magazine TAKHIDROMOS of the newspaper TA NEA Saturday.

In April 2000 he started working at the international news agency THE ASSOCIATED PRESS. Since then, it has covered dozens of news events of global interest (social unrest, the Pope’s travels, political events, Olympic Games, World Football Championships, European Football Championships, Formula 1, World and European Championships in basketball, swimming etc.).

In recent years he has photographed the migration and refugee crisis in Greece in various ways as well as the economic crisis in the country and its political developments.

Since the summer of 2014 he is the head of the photo departments of ASSOCIATED PRESS for Greece, Cyprus, Albania and North Macedonia.