Nino Rakichevich’s Quest For Available Light
Growing up in Yugoslavia, Nino Rakichevich dreamed of becoming a fashion photographer. He picked up a camera at an early age and started shooting, winning many awards before immigrating to the U.S. in the late 1980s to study at the world-renowned Brooks Institute of Photography. There he built up a body of work he could use to land his first fashion assignments.
“When I graduated from Brooks, my entire portfolio was basically fashion,” Rakichevich says. “They didn’t even have a fashion class then, but I followed fashion and fashion photographers and all the good magazines, so I was up on all that was going on. And I was lucky enough that very soon after I graduated, I got some big fashion clients. That’s how I started.”
Rakichevich assisted other photographers only a few times, finding that garnering his own assignments was largely a function of getting to know the people in the fashion industry who had the power to hire him. He says it’s much the same today.
“You really have to be out there and mingling with the right groups of people,” he says,
