Paolo Pellegrin was born in 1964 in Rome. He studied architecture at L’Università la Sapienza, Rome, before studying photography at L’istituto Italiano di Fotografia. Between 1991 and 2001 Pellegrin was represented by Agence VU in Paris. He was a contract photographer for Newsweek for ten years. Pellegrin is one of the world’s leading photojournalists who has documented many of this generation’s major disasters and conflicts, from revolutions to wars to tsunamis. Pellegrin wishes his work to “create a bridge...to use photography to say something that goes beyond the surface, that vibrates, that resonates.” This approach has lead him to photograph in Lebanon, Iran, Palestine, Romania, Afghanistan, Libya, Cuba, the United States, Mali, Egypt, Algeria, Haiti, Tunisia, and Indonesia. In 2001 he became a Magnum Photos nominee and a full member in 2005.
