Paolo Pellegrin

Paolo Pellegrin (born March 11, 1964) is a photojournalist. He was born in Rome, Italy, into a family of architects. He is a member of the Magnum agency.

Pellegrin studied architecture at L'Università la Sapienza, in Rome, and after three years he decided to change career directions and left to study photography at Istituto Italiano di Fotografia in Rome, from 1986 to 1987. During these years, he met the Italian photographer Enzo Ragazzini, who became his mentor.

Between 1987 and 1990 he began working on his first photography projects in Italy, concentrating on immigration, the circus and homelessness. He was also working as an assistant for a number of photographers and videographers. In 1991, after completing a well-paid assignment for the Italian state TV channel, he bought a second-hand car, filled it with his prints and negatives, and moved to Paris where he met Christian Caujolle, who invited him to join Agence Vu, which represented him for nine years.

In 1992 he began working on personal projects, on subjects such as the Romani people in Italy and Bosnia and made several trips to the Balkans after Albania opened its borders. Through Christian Caujolle, he met Grazia Neri, who represented him in Italy. Between 1994 and 1995, he started working on a project about children in post-war Bosnia and travelled in Italy, Romania, Mexico, Uganda, Zimbabwe, and Kenya for a project on HIV/AIDS. In 1995 he won his first World Press Photo award for his work on AIDS in Uganda.

The year after, he was awarded the Kodak Young Photographer Award / Visa d'Or at Visa Pour l’Image photography festival for his reportage on AIDS in Uganda and participated in the World Press Joop Swart Masterclass. In 1997 he published his first book, Bambini, on his work about children in Bosnia, Uganda and Romania and was awarded the City of Gijòn International Prize of Photojournalism for his work on children in post-war Bosnia. In 1998 he worked on a project for Médecins Sans Frontières, which became a book, Cambodia, and a traveling exhibition. He won a World Press Photo award for his work in Cambodia. In the same year, he was given his first assignment by Kathy Ryan at the New York Times Magazine to work on blood feuds in Albania with reporter Scott Anderson. This assignment with Anderson marked the beginning of a long-time work collaboration that will result in over ten cover stories for the magazine.

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