Some careers are built gradually. Others break and restart. For Vassilis Pitoulis, photography came after a life-threatening health issue forced a complete reset. What followed was a full commitment to image-making. He works mostly in black and white, focusing on light, shadow, and presence. His amazing photographs move between fashion and nude work, with an emphasis on expression rather than staging. Women are at the center of his practice, often appearing elegant, bold, and unrestrained, moving easily between different states of being.
In the conversation that follows, Vassilis speaks about photography, transformation, and what continues to drive his work today.
1. When did photography first become more than an interest for you, a way of understanding the world rather than just documenting it? How did it all begin?
Vassilis Pitoulis: Photography became something deeper for me at a moment of rupture. I had been a businessman, living a structured life, when a serious illness forced me to stop and reconsider everything. That experience changed my priorities completely. I realized I didn’t want to simply exist, I wanted to feel, to create, to connect. Photography became my way of understanding the world, not just recording it. It began as curiosity, but very quickly turned into necessity.
2. How would you describe your work to someone encountering it for the first time?
Vassilis Pitoulis: I would describe my work as an exploration of presence, freedom, and contradiction. It lives in black and white, where nothing is hidden behind color. My images move between elegance and provocation, stillness and tension, beauty and discomfort. I try not to explain too much. I prefer the viewer to feel something unexpected, even unsettling. If my work does anything, I hope it interrupts indifference.
3. Winning the Monochrome Photography Award in 2016 for Professional Nude Photography is a milestone, but when it comes to personal growth, how much weight should we give to titles compared with the freedom to create?
V.S: Recognition is meaningful, of course. It acknowledges the work and gives it visibility. But titles are external, and growth is internal. For me, freedom to create is everything. Without that, the work loses its truth. Awards may open doors, but they should never define the direction. The real challenge is to remain honest, curious, and evolving, regardless of recognition.
4. What personal values guide your decisions when choosing what to photograph and what to leave out?
I am guided by instinct, authenticity, and emotional resonance. If something doesn’t move me, I don’t photograph it. I look for moments where there is tension, vulnerability, or quiet strength. I also believe in respect, especially in nude photography. There must be trust, dignity, and a shared understanding. What I leave out is just as important as what I include; absence creates space for meaning.
5. Favourite images that you took, favourite places, favourite stories.
It’s difficult to choose favourites because each image belongs to a specific moment in my life. Some photographs stay with me because of the connection with the model, others because of the place, or the energy that was present that day. I am drawn to places that feel raw and open where light and silence can shape the image. The stories I value most are often the quiet ones, the ones that are not immediately visible but can be felt beneath the surface.
6. From my own experience posing semi-nude, confidence and self-connection can grow in unexpected ways. How does that show up with your models?
I see that transformation often. At the beginning, there can be hesitation, a certain distance. But as the session evolves, something shifts, there is a release, a kind of honesty that emerges. The camera becomes secondary. What matters is the connection with oneself. When that happens, the images gain depth. It’s not about exposure of the body, but about revealing something more essential.
7. What does a great model mean to you, not just in terms of poses, but in energy, presence, and the way they bring a vision to life?
A great model is someone who is present, completely there in the moment. Technique is secondary. What matters is authenticity, the ability to feel rather than perform. I look for someone who can move between states: strength, vulnerability, stillness, intensity, without forcing it. The best collaborations are those where the model becomes a co-creator, bringing their own truth into the image.
8. How do you relate today to your older photographs? Do they still feel like yours?
Yes, they still feel like mine, but they belong to a different version of me. When I look at older work, I see where I was, what I was searching for, what I didn’t yet understand. There is a certain distance, but also recognition. They are part of the same journey. I don’t reject them; I see them as necessary steps.
9. Has photography ever acted as a form of healing for you, not in a therapeutic sense, but as a way of processing experiences that words could not hold?
Absolutely. Photography allows me to process things that cannot be explained logically. It gives form to emotions, to sensations that are otherwise intangible. It’s not about healing in a direct sense, but about transformation, taking something internal and giving it an external presence. In that way, it creates clarity, even if the image itself remains ambiguous.
10. If one of your photographs could escape the gallery and explore the world for a day, which one would cause the most trouble?
Probably one of my more provocative images. It would be one that sits on the edge between beauty and discomfort. I think this causes trouble because it refuses to be easily categorized. A photo like this confronts people in unexpected places, it challenges assumptions, it may even provoke rejection. But that’s also where the power of my photography resides sometimes, forcing a reaction, breaking routine, making people stop and feel something.
Artgasmic: Thank you for your time and for this conversation. It was a pleasure working on this interview with you. Your images have a way of staying in the mind even after you’ve stopped looking at them.
Many thanks to Nuria Sancho, as well!
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