Photographer Andrew Prokos makes architectural landscapes his bread and butter.

Andrew Prokos has a way with cities—a panoramic view of midtown Manhattan from Weehawken at sunset; Rockefeller Center illuminated by Christmas lights at night; vivid amber foliage in Central Park in autumn; The Washington Monument framed by cherry blossoms against a crisp, blue sky. Influenced by Ansel Adams, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Cindy Sherman, Prokos’s romantic images of cityscapes are part architectural documentary, part fine art and more about the technique—light, lens and focus—than about Photoshop touch-ups back in the studio.  

Unlike other photographers who dream of exhibiting in prominent galleries or landing huge advertising assignments, Prokos photographs only what inspires him, and his approach is purely instinctual. “My work is very slow and tedious,” he says. “I don’t like to manipulate images. My pictures are old-fashioned and have a documentary quality.”

Despite Prokos’s unwillingness to bend with commercial trends, the self-taught photographer has reaped financial rewards. Clients such as Merrill Lynch and Anheuser-Busch often purchase his large-format images for their collections, and more recently, Cisco Systems, the network management company, commissioned him to photograph seven New York City neighborhoods for its corporate offices—a nine-month project where he was given the creative freedom to shoot what he pleased.

A native of Punta Gorda, Florida, a small city bordered by the Gulf of Mexico, Prokos graduated with a degree in political science from the University of Florida at age 20. From there, he moved to Manhattan to earn his master’s degree in political science at NYU, but after he began the academic program, he felt something was off.

“I was too young to start grad school, and I was in transition about what I wanted to do with my life,” he says. “I think deep down, I realized I was changing as a person and I didn’t want to pursue political science as a career.”

A friend’s girlfriend suggested Prokos visit her modeling agency. It wasn’t a long-term career goal, but it was Prokos’s ticket to finding himself. Two years later, he was in Milan, modeling mostly for commercials. While there, he was inspired to explore his creative side. “I bought my first Nikon 35mm for fun,” he says. “I traveled around Europe taking pictures of everything that moved.”

Meteora, Mount Olympus, Macedonia and southern Turkey became Prokos’s first subjects. “I love the historical and cultural richness of the Mediterranean,” he says. With ancient monasteries and the Aegean Sea as his backdrop, the fledgling photographer fell in love with capturing a sense of place. “I realized that part of what defines a city is its architecture,” he says. It is a theme that has carried through his photography for the past ten years.   

When Prokos returned to New York in 1996, photography remained a passion, but he was convinced that he wouldn’t be able to make a living on pictures alone. He began doing freelance Web design work for advertising agencies, and he continued to build a personal photo archive on the side. After four years of balancing his design work with photography, the Web industry began to suffer, and Prokos was forced to make a decision. “I had saved my money, and I was at an age where I knew what I really wanted to do was photography,” he says. “I had never allowed myself the opportunity to try it as a career, and [at 30] it was time for me to take the risk, use my savings and plunge in.”

Prokos bought new equipment and spent more than three years and $35,000 building his business. He put prints from his archive on his Web site. For two years after 9/11, Prokos sold very few prints, but he kept shooting. “I wanted to build a comprehensive collection of images of New York City, and there were a lot of gaps I needed to fill,” he explains. “Between 2003 and 2005, I shot extensively to fill in the gaps and raise the quality of my shots. I didn’t worry about the type of client I would bring in at the beginning—I know that’s not the best advice for planning a business, but it’s the reality of what happened.”

Prokos’s hard work eventually paid off. After finding his Web site through image searches, high-end clients like Tiffany & Co., Wachovia and Ritz Carlton Hotels started coming through the door. “The production head of Tiffany & Co. specifically mentioned that she looked first in the stock houses and couldn’t find anything she liked,” Prokos says. “So she turned to independent photographers. The Web site has been by far my best asset in terms of exposure.”

Prokos’s first major commission came two and half years into his start-up. JBG, a property development company, asked him to shoot Washington, D.C., locations. JBG currently uses the resulting images as art in rotation at various hotel and condo properties.

Now six years after his decision to become a full-time photographer, Prokos is glad he took the risk. “You have to give yourself a chance,” he says. “For a decade I didn’t believe I could make a career in photography. I taught myself. I was never an assistant. It took trial and error and a lot of patience.”

© 2006 All photos copyright Andrew Prokos, All rights reserved. andrewprokos.com