Paolo Pellegrin's 'Double Blind' is testimony to the destruction and lasting consequences of conflict between Hezbollah and the Israeli Army in Lebanon
"I'm more interested in a photography that is 'unfinished' — a photography that is suggestive and can trigger a conversation or dialogue. There are pictures that are closed, finished, to which there is no way in."
- Paolo Pellegrin
Paolo Pellegrin was born in 1964 in Rome. He studied architecture at the Università la Sapienza, and later photography at the Istituto Italiano di Fotografia. He became a Magnum Photos nominee in 2001 and a full member in 2005. He was a contract photographer for Newsweek magazine for 10 years.
Pellegrin has won many honors, including ten World Press Photo awards, numerous Photographer of the Year awards, a Leica Medal of Excellence, an Olivier Rebbot Award, the Hansel–Mieth-Preis, and the Robert Capa Gold Medal Award. In 2006, he was assigned the W. Eugene Smith Fund Grant.
He has produced a number of books, including Kosovo, 1999–2000: The Flight of Reason (2002), As I Was Dying (2007), Double Blind (2007), Dies Irae (2011), Heart of Darkness (2015), and the colossal collaboration with fellow Magnum photographer Alex Majoli, Congo (2015). In 2022, at Gallerie d’Italia in Turin, Pellegrin exhibited an extensive project on climate change, featuring work from around the world.
Paolo Pellegrin lives in Geneva and continues to shoot for news publications and magazines, as well as personal projects.