Georgios Makkas
Photographer
Panos Pictures
Athens, Kentrikos Tomeas Athinon, Greece
I was born in Athens in 1977, moved to the UK in 1999 to attend the Documentary Photography course in Newport, Wales from which I graduated in 2002.
Over the past 15 years I have worked as a freelance photographer in my native Greece and in other countries for editorial and commercial clients.
I am represented globally by Panos Pictures, a London-based photo agency specialising in global social issues.
I have experience in managing other photographers which I gained while working for Frommer’s travel guides, briefing the photographers, editing material, liaising with the photo editor and overseeing the project.
In the past three years I acquired skills in video production while shooting and editing short documentaries for CERN and RAI 5, the Italian broadcaster.
As well as doing my own projectsI also contribute to international magazines, newspapers, work for NGOs and on private commissions both in photography and video.
I have worked for: MSF international, Frommer’s Travel Guides, IEEE Spectrum (USA), The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sunday Telegraph, Look, The Independent Abergavenny Food Festival (UK), The Sunday Telegraph, The Sunday Mail (Australia), M le magazine du monde (France) RAI 5 (Italy), iTravel (China), Vmag (Malaysia), Talouselämä (Finland), Clinical Newswire, MNC Systems (Japan), Vimagazino, Tahidromos, K, Epiloges, Epsilon internetq, ILPAP Athens Trolley Bus Company , Greek NGO 50plus hellas, bios theatre (Greece), CERN, AOSpine International (Switzerland) Polish NGOs Akademia Przyszlosci, CentrumCSR (Poland)
2002 - Observer Hodge Photographic Award
- Architecture
- Audio capture
- Breaking news
- Corporate
- Editorial
- Interior
- Portrait
- Video capture
Johaina and Fadel
Georgios Makkas
Johaina and Fadel from Syria had been stranded at Idomeni for over a month when I photographed them. They had been married for three years but they didn’t want to have children in Syria because of the war. Johaina wants to have a child when she reaches Germany. To get to Turkey they had to cross an area controlled by Islamists where photography was prohibited and they were told to destroy their wedding photos. When they met me, Johaina asked me to take their “wedding portrait” again, even though Fadel was unhappy about the state his clothes.
From the series "short stories of the refugee crisis"