Thanassis Stavrakis was born in Stockholm in 1973.

He graduated from the School of Study and Practice of Photography (EMEF) in Athens.

He has been working as a photojournalist since August 1992.

Until 1997, he worked for Greek photo agencies in Athens, covering domestic and international news, feature stories, sports and traveling as a correspondent through Greece and abroad.

He worked for the daily newspaper Ethnos from 1997 to 1999 covering major news stories in Greece and abroad.

He was freelancer for the Greek weekly magazine Epsilon of Kyriakatiki Eleftherotypia from 1999-2001. During that collaboration he began working for the Associated Press in Athens as a news photographer.

He has been working with Tachydromos magazine of Ta Nea newspaper since January 2007 until 2010.

The last 21 years for the Associated Press has been covered dozens major social stories around the world. Including sport events, such as Olympic Games, Soccer World Cups and Euro Championships, World and Euro Basketball tournaments, World Swimming Championships, Formula 1 circuits.  From 2008 covering, coordinating and editing clashes in Athens, Financial Crisis, the refugee crisis, wildfires and the virus outbreak in Greece.

From June 2014 is AP chief photographer responsible for Greece, Cyprus, Albania and North Macedonia.

He taught news photography at ANT1 Media Lab from October 2018 until June 2020.

Since 2017 he is teaching Street Photography at Municipilaty of Chalandri.

He is the founder and the artistic director of the Athens Photo World https://www.apw.gr an annual international photojournalism festival in Greece.