Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Marianna Asimakopoulou. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Marianna, appreciate you joining us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

Life has always gone hand in hand with art for me. I am very grateful to have grown up in a household where, despite my home country, Greece’s, disregard for arts education, my siblings and I were always encouraged and supported in our creative endeavors. We were taught to appreciate and experiment with as many crafts and disciplines as possible. The older I got the more I realized that what my friends did as a hobby, I would do all the time. So, more than a single moment when I knew I wanted to pursue an artistic path professionally, for me it was a path I had been following since I can remember myself. I was lucky to have had a choice to pursue other things but art is how life makes sense to me. It is a vital part of life and has become how I communicate and connect with people as well as express my emotions and better understand myself. Even when I didn’t know what it was called or how to explain it, looking back I have always been trying to evolve as a photographer, as an artist.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I am a photographer whose main area of focus is documentary photography/photojournalism. I specialize in documentary portraiture as well as landscape narrative images. The reason why I started to make photographs in the first place is because I wanted to make up for the fact that I didn’t like to talk very much and always had been quite reserved. Despite those characteristics, I was still curious and wanted to learn more about other people and places, and show them that I cared about the stories they had to tell. As I grew older I also started becoming aware of how precious is it to be able to hold on to a moment in time, so that also became a big motivator for me to have a camera nearby at all times.

I consider my approach to photographing an intersection between documentary and fine art, blending a straightforward framing with more emotive, fine art details. The choice of black and white in the majority of my photographs started as a way for me to better focus on what is going on within a frame. In the last 4 years I have gained a lot of experience on how to use a darkroom, develop my film and print my own images and I just fell in love with the details and hard work that goes into something that might seem as simple as ”black and white”. Having practiced the tangible aspect of the craft of photography, I pride myself in being a photographer who pays great attention to detail and always tries to do justice, visually, to the story being told in the images. Being patient with the work I make and taking my time to get to know the people I photograph is very important to me. Photographing, for me, has to be an exchange between the person in front of the camera and the person behind it. I am not interested in being allowed into somebody’s home, experiences and stories only to quickly press my shutter and then leave as soon as ”I’ve gotten the photo”. This slower approach to documenting people and places is complemented by the use of 35mm, medium as well as large format cameras when working on a project/story.

I consider myself to be a versatile photographer since, besides the slow approach to documentation, I also have quite a lot of experience in photojournalism, having practiced street photography as well as having photographed concerts, political campaigns, Behind-the-Scenes for short films and more.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

The most rewarding aspect of being an artist or creative, for me, is connecting with others. It is very inspiring to find oneself in the details of someone else’s life/world and feel seen and understood by another’s artwork. As cliche as it may sound, it is important for everyone to know that we are never as alone as we think we are. I believe that art is very comforting in that way.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

This one took me a while but one lesson I had to unlearn is that giving up on your dreams/aspiration/things you want to pursue isn’t necessarily a part of growing up/adulthood. I would hear very often that considering making a career out of a creative endeavor is not taking oneself seriously, being unrealistic and already knowing that one is set up for failure. I don’t think this has to be true. One can choose what is best for them but improving one’s craft and dedicating time and effort to build an audience for that craft is as serious as anything else and requires as much effort as anything else. I know it is not as easy and simple as that and I am very aware of how lucky I am to be able to talk about this in the first place in such a platform. I am very grateful for all the people who have supported me in all the things I have wanted to pursue so that I never had to think about what my plan was once I ”grew out of taking pictures”. Art has always been the plan.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://mmovphotography.wixsite.com/my-site
• Instagram: mmovphf