Moises Saman

Moises Saman was born in Lima, Peru, in 1974 to a mixed Spanish and Peruvian family. At the age of one, he relocated with his family to Barcelona, Spain, where he spent most of his youth. He studied communications and sociology in the United States at California State University, graduating in 1998. It was during his last year at university that Saman first became interested in becoming a photographer, influenced by his studies in visual sociology, and the work of a number of photojournalists who had been covering the wars in the Balkans.

Saman blends traditional conflict photography with a deeply personal point of view. For more than 10 years, he has been concerned with the humanitarian impact of war in the Middle East, documenting both the front line of daily suffering and the “fleeting moments on the periphery of the more dramatic events.”

He has worked on many editorial commissions, including covers for Time magazine’s Person of the Year (2018), which featured several journalists who had been targeted for their work. For this prestigious assignment, Saman photographed 26 journalists during trips to seven countries, including Myanmar, Bangladesh, Russia, Germany and Mexico.

Saman’s work has received awards from World Press Photo, Pictures of the Year and the Overseas Press Club, and his photographs have been shown in several exhibitions worldwide. In 2015, he was given the highly regarded Guggenheim Fellowship for his photojournalism project on the Arab Spring. In 2023, Saman was named a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, and he published Glad Tidings of Benevolence, a book that combines photographs and disparate documentation and texts from his time as a photojournalist covering the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq and the years following. 

Saman joined Magnum Photos in 2010 and became a full member in 2014. He is currently based in Amman, Jordan.