PSIHOYOS, Louie

PSIHOYOS, Louie. (Dubuque, IA, 1957-- ). Filmmaker, photographer. The son of a Greek immigrant who fled communist occupation of the Peloponnesos region near Sparta after WORLD WAR II, Psihoyos possessed a childhood passion for art and discovered photography at the age of fourteen. He won several Kodak Photography contests by the age of fifteen. He worked briefly for several newspapers icludeing the L.A. Times while attending the University of Missouri Journalism Department for photojournalism.

At the age of seventeen, Psihoyos earned a minor role as Sylvester Stallone's wedding photographer in the MOTION PICTURE "F.I.S.T." In 1980, just twenty-three years old and having won an unprecedented first place in every category of the prestigious College Photographer of the Year award, he became the first new National Geographic photographer hired on staff in more than a decade. Psihoyos worked for the yellow-bordered magazine for the next seventeen years establishing himself as one of the medium's most prolific and profound visionaries.

Psihoyos' first story for National Geographic was the "Powder River Basin: The New Energy Frontier" and marked the return of the classic black and white essay, the first published by National Geographic in twenty years. He has won numerous awards including first place n the World Press Contest, the Hearst Awards, and the National Press Photographers Association. While he shoots editorial for magazines around the world, much of his work makes it onto the walls of some of the finest museums and galleries in the world including the Corcoran National Gallery in Washington, D.C.; the International Center of Photography in New York; and the Musee de Elysee in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Psihoyos has photographed hundreds of famous people from all walks of life. He also photographed gratis many popular posters of Paul Newman for "Newman's Own," the company which benefits a vast array of charities included "The Hole in the Wall Gang," a camp where children with cancer and serious blood diseases find friendship, joy and a renewed sense of being a kid. He has circled the globe dozens of times for National Geographic on photographic missions as diverse as sleep and dreams to the sense of smell. He is world-renown for his imagination, wit, and iconic imagery.

Psihoyos lived in New York for ten years in an artist's building that was home and studio to world-famous artists including Sandro Chia, Julian Schnabel, and Arman. Psihoyos maintained a floor of the building for several years while he created photographs and lived with his wife who danced ballet with George Balanchine's New York City Ballet. After having two children, Nico and Sam, they moved their family to Antigua in the West Indies to raise their children while Psihoyos wrote. The resulting book, Hunting Dinosaurs published in 1994 by Random Hose, was about his travels around the world for a National Geographic magazine story documenting dinosaur discoveries. Psihoyos became the subject of national news, including a front page Wall Street Journal article when he discovered the bones of famed paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope on a museum shelf. Paleontologists, Charlie and Flo McGovern, named one of their discoveries, "Baby Louie," after Psihoyos. The small embryonic carnivore dinosaur is one of the best-preserved dinosaur eggs in the world and became a center piece for The Children's Museum of Indianapolis.

Psihoyos was a main contributor to the "Materal World Project," a U.N. sponsored show of family portraits depicting forty families from different countries with their material possessions. The resulting book from that work was a best seller and has been reprinted dozens of times in many languages. Psihoyos was the subject of several books about the work of National Geographic photographers including National Geographic On Assignment, Odyssey-The Art of the National Geographic, and National Geographic-The Photographs. He has also been the subject of a National Geographic Explorer.