Paolo Pellegrin, one of the world's leading photojournalists, 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 led him to photograph in Lebanon, Iran, Palestine, Romania, Afghanistan, Libya, Cuba, the United States, Mali, Egypt, Algeria, Haiti, Tunisia and Indonesia.
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.
He has been published in many leading newspapers and magazines including TIME magazine, The New York Times, Newsweek and The New York Times Magazine, where he has photographed more than ten cover stories with reporter Scott Anderson. Pellegrin is a winner of many awards, including ten World Press Photo awards and numerous Photographer of the Year awards, a Leica Medal of Excellence, an Olivier Rebbot Award, the Hansel-Meith Preis and the Robert Capa Gold Medal Award. In 2006, he was assigned the W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography. In 2001 he became a Magnum Photos nominee and a full member in 2005.