Alexandra Mavros : The art of photographing hat slips away
In the work of Alexandra Mavros, an image rarely emerges where you’d expect. It is not built around the decisive moment, but around what comes just before or just after it, in those fleeting fractions of a second when reality momentarily stops performing its own role. Perhaps this is where the singularity of her gaze lies: photographing not the event itself, but its release. A Paris-based photographer and filmmaker of Greek-Canadian heritage, Alexandra Mavros has developed a practice shaped as much by cinema as by photography. The “fourth wall,” a notion she readily embraces, is more than a cinematic reference it is a way of seeing. Her lens is instinctively drawn to what happens behind the scenes: involuntary gestures, distracted glances, those subtle moments when the staging begins to crack and humanity quietly reclaims the image. Far removed from a fashion photography driven by visual demonstration, her work embraces accident, spontaneity, and observation. Soft, natural, cinematic light accompanies rather than dramatizes. Each photograph feels suspended, like a story deliberately left unfinished, inviting the viewer to imagine what lies beyond the frame. This search for a beauty inseparable from truth an acknowledged legacy of Peter Lindbergh is enriched by a discreet irony that recalls both Martin Parr and Elliott Erwitt. Her humor is never demonstrative; it emerges through details, unexpected juxtapositions, and coincidences that only a patient eye can perceive. Reading this Questionnaire, one thing becomes immediately apparent: Alexandra Mavros is as fascinated by the photographs she never took as by those she did. A Chihuahua in a stroller on the Croisette. A sailor smoking his pipe in the port of Naples. An elderly man with a sunburnt belly spilling over a red Speedo on a Greek beach… These missed photographs perhaps reveal her deepest obsession: capturing those fleeting moments that vanish before they are fully seen. At a time when algorithms increasingly standardize the way we look, Alexandra Mavros reminds us that “photographs are meant to be printed, touched, and leafed through not liked.” A simple statement that perfectly encapsulates her practice: attentive, demanding, and deeply committed to everything that escapes the relentless speed of contemporary images. For her, photography neither seeks to impress nor to prove; it simply waits for reality, however briefly, to forget that it is being watched.
Web Site : www.macrospictures.com
Instagram : @mavrospictures
What was your first photographic trigger?
Alexandra Mavros: I was fifteen, holding my first camera, with my sister as my subject and my father by my side as my guide. He was teaching me how to master light, and to explain depth of field, he slipped his hand between my lens and my sister’s face. I pressed the shutter before he had time to move it away—and that was the real trigger. Photography suddenly allowed me to capture what the naked eye lets slip away: a hand moving too fast, a little sister who wasn’t grown up yet, and a moment no one else would have noticed.
Who is the image-maker who inspires you most?
Alexandra Mavros: I’m terrible with first names—and even worse with making decisions. There’s Peter Lindbergh, to whom I devoted my thesis, especially his ability to unite beauty and truth. Then there’s Martin Parr and Elliott Erwitt, who are probably my favorite comedians. And Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, one of the first cinematographers whose vision made me look up his name in the end credits. I’ll stop there.
Which image do you wish you had made?
Alexandra Mavros: Not one image, but a series: Lunchtime by Charles H. Traub. Candid portraits taken during lunch breaks in the 1970s. Color—and nerve!
Which image has moved you the most?
Alexandra Mavros: A photograph of my mother when she was my age.
Which image has made you angry?
Alexandra Mavros: Any image devoid of humanity.
A key image in your personal pantheon?
Alexandra Mavros: Lovers. A tender kiss in front of the red-carpet barrier at the Cannes Film Festival. I pressed the shutter without breaking my stride I just happened to be there at the right moment. That photograph made me want to see my work printed large. I’d love to find those lovers one day and give them a print.
A photographic memory from your childhood?
Alexandra Mavros: I was ten, armed with the family camcorder and pockets full of stories. I directed my sister and our cousins from England in our dining room. I dressed them, briefed them on their characters, and kept them acting until we couldn’t stop laughing. It’s one of my happiest memories. Twenty years later, I still haven’t stopped creating with my friends whether in a single frame or twenty-four frames per second.
The image that obsesses you?
Alexandra Mavros: The one I didn’t dare to take. A Chihuahua in a stroller during the Cannes Film Festival. A sailor in uniform smoking his pipe in the port of Naples. An over-tanned octogenarian with his belly spilling out of a bright red Speedo on a Greek beach.
Which image changed the world?
Alexandra Mavros: The one that came from the other side of the world.
Which image changed your world?
Alexandra Mavros: The very first one I took with my grandfather’s old camera, then had developed in a lab.
If money were no object, which artwork would you dream of owning?
Alexandra Mavros: My walls are covered with movie posters and family photographs. Once I have a blank wall, I’ll come back to that question.
In your opinion, what quality is essential to becoming a good photographer?
Alexandra Mavros: Knowing how to let go and how to take the shot.
What is the secret of the perfect image, if such a thing exists?
Alexandra Mavros: To make it. The Latin root of the word perfect, perficere, means “to complete, to bring to fulfillment.” A photograph that has been made is already a perfect photograph. And if I were allowed a second secret: synchronicity.
Who would you most like to photograph?
Alexandra Mavros: Whoever is wearing colorful clothes.
Who would you most like to be photographed by?
Alexandra Mavros: My grandfather.
An indispensable photography book?
Alexandra Mavros: A Taschen book I bought at Paris Photo last year: the making-of of the first James Bond film, Dr. No. Cinema, photography, behind the scenes everything I love gathered into one object.
What was the camera of your childhood?
Alexandra Mavros: The one on my first phone: a Sony Ericsson. The one I borrowed from my father: a Nikon F4. The one I eventually made my own: a Nikon D3100.
Which camera do you use today?
Alexandra Mavros: A Sony A7 IV for its versatility. A Leica Q for traveling light. And a Canon Ixus 185 for the memories that end up in shared family albums.
Your favorite drug?
Alexandra Mavros: Mastika.
How do you disconnect?
Alexandra Mavros: Dancing with my friends in Irish pubs on Friday nights.
What question unsettles you the most?
Alexandra Mavros: “How are you?”
What is your relationship with the image?
Alexandra Mavros: Reciprocal.
Your greatest quality?
Alexandra Mavros: Passing things on according to my astrologer.
Your latest act of madness?
Alexandra Mavros: Joining a table tennis club in Le Marais.
An image to illustrate a new banknote?
Alexandra Mavros: One of William Wegman’s Weimaraners.
A job you would never have wanted to do?
Alexandra Mavros: One that wouldn’t let me do three others at the same time.
Your greatest professional extravagance?
Alexandra Mavros: Printing on baryta paper.
Can photography change our collective perception of an event or an era?
Alexandra Mavros: Absolutely. Photography can justify wars just as easily as it can end careers. But just as history books often distort or simply omit certain narratives, it is not photography itself that holds the power so much as the choice of what is shown and what is left unseen.
How do you perceive the influence of social media on the way photographs are created and perceived today?
Alexandra Mavros: Like everything else, it’s a double-edged sword. As artists, we have more visibility and inspiration at our fingertips than ever before, but if we’re not careful, those very fingers can get cut off. We compose for the 4:5 ratio instead of the story we want to tell. We let the algorithm dictate our creativity, and when it doesn’t validate us, anxiety creeps in until we no longer want to post or even photograph. To avoid losing ourselves, we have to remember that the pleasure lies in the act itself, not in the “like.” Photographs are meant to be printed, touched, and leafed through not merely liked.
One Instagram account everyone should follow?
Alexandra Mavros: @sciuraglam.
What’s the last thing you did for the first time?
Alexandra Mavros: Getting out of bed on the right foot.
What makes a successful photograph?
Alexandra Mavros: A photograph that has been taken.
What interests you most in an image?
Alexandra Mavros: Recognition. Seeing something that feels true.
What distinguishes photography from art photography?
Alexandra Mavros: The difference lies less in the photograph than in the wall it’s hung on. A picture of the tin of sardines I had for breakfast becomes art the moment I place a museum label next to it.
Which city, country, or culture do you dream of discovering?
Alexandra Mavros: Brazil. Or Nepal. Or Indonesia. I’m not difficult I will happily go wherever someone is willing to host me.
A place you never tire of?
Alexandra Mavros: Greece in the summer.
Your greatest regret?
Alexandra Mavros: NO REGRETS.
Color or black and white?
Alexandra Mavros: Color to attract. Black and white to undress.
Daylight or artificial light?
Alexandra Mavros: Natural light until I discovered the flash gun.
In your opinion, what is the world’s most photogenic city?
Alexandra Mavros: Sant’Angelo, Ischia. Full of color and elegantly dressed retirees.
If God existed, would you ask Him to pose for you, or would you rather take a selfie with Him?
Alexandra Mavros: Neither. He’d probably be overexposed.
If I could organize your ideal dinner, who would be sitting around the table?
Alexandra Mavros: My mother, for love. Shams of Tabriz, for truth. Kate McKinnon, for laughter. Marco Bezzecchi, for the motorcycle ride after dessert. Howard Hawks, to film it all. And my friends, to complete the picture.
Which image best represents the current state of the world?
Alexandra Mavros: The censored one.
If you had to start all over again?
Alexandra Mavros: Less doubt, more momentum.
Last word?
Alexandra Mavros: Gratitude.
