Lefteris Pitarakis

Born in Athens, Greece, where he studied photography, majoring in photojournalism. Worked as a freelance photographer in Greece until 1998 when started working in the Athens bureau of The Associated Press assigned to AP coverage in the greater Balkan region, with multiple assignments in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, and the Yugoslav province of Kosovo, during and after the NATO war. From April 2000 to April 2005 he covered extensively the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Travelled in the greater Middle East region for assignments to Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan and covered the aftermath of the US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Since April 2005 he is covering news, sports and features for the Associated Press in Europe, Middle East and Africa regions with most recent major assignment the summer 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon. That body of work from the conflict along with the rest of the AP photo team that covered it, made them finalists for the 2006 Pulitzer Prize.