Matthew Rakola (The Photographer)

Matthew Rakola (né Hakola) is a proud Maine native who learned how to photograph people by bartending. Both professions require the ability to read people quickly, anticipate their needs, and most importantly–listen. To be fair, he also learned a thing or two as a commercial photography major at Syracuse University, where he spent hundreds of hours up to his elbows in smelly photo chemistry.

I guess It’s fair that he got most of his professional training while washing dishes.

Today he uses all of these skills and more as a commercial, advertising and editorial photographer based in Washington, DC. He specializes in photographing real people doing real things and still loves to listen and learn on the job.

When he's not writing about himself in the third person or making images, he's probably with his wife, chasing their two sons around, searching the Chesapeake Bay for fossilized shark teeth, or wishing he was scuba diving. He’s actively lobbying his family for a pet skunk, who he is going to name Kodak. In the meantime he dotes on his two goldfish, Becky and Swimmy.

Say hi at matthew@rakola.com or (202) 664-0601.

Clients include: 2U, Aerospace Corporation, Google, National Geographic Kids, the Kresge Foundation, Outward Bound of Chesapeake Bay, Price Waterhouse Cooper, Science Magazine, Systems Alliance, Thomson Reuters, and many other editorial clients and universities.