Valerio Bispuri

Biography

Valerio Bispuri was born in 1971 in Rome, Italy.
He earned a bachelor’s degree in Journalism and a master’s degree in Literature.
Since 2001, he has been working as a professional photojournalist and documentary photographer. He spent a significant part of his life in Latin America, making Argentina his second home.
His first documentary projects were dedicated to the life and culture of Gypsy communities—from Italy to remote villages in Bosnia. Subsequently, he specialized in long-term visual investigations, social anthropological analysis, and the human dramas of isolation. For more than 10 years, he devoted himself to exploring South America’s closed prison systems in his project Encerrados, and spent 14 years researching the phenomenon of severe drug addiction in his series Paco. Among the author’s other key themes are visual studies of the deaf community, human trafficking of women in Argentina, and a long-term project on mental health disorders and psychiatric institutions in Italy and Africa titled The Forgotten. He is the author of several monographs and a practical guide on visual storytelling, Telling stories with the Eyes (2024).
Bispuri’s work and photo essays are regularly published in leading global periodicals: Le Monde, Stern, L’Espresso, Il Venerdì di Repubblica, Internazionale, The Guardian, Time, GEO, National Geographic Italia, Newsweek, Vanity Fair.
Valerio lives and works in Rome, continuing regular photo expeditions and teaching activities around the world.
Since 2026 — member of the Noga Creative Union.