Biography of Jonathan Alpeyrie
Jonathan was born in France early in 1979, from a Spanish mother and a Russian father. He lived in Paris until the day he decided to leave the old continent to join his father in the United States. He has been living in New York, since July 1993. He graduated from University of Chicago with a degree in medieval history in June of 2003.
His photography career starting oddly in 1996 when he decided to photograph ancient Roman sites all around the Mediterranean Sea, and traveled every summer and winter to various sites in Europe, North Africa and the mid East. When he went to college in the fall of 1998. He decided to go further to perfect this craft by shooting for various Chicago newspaper, including the Reader and Street Wise. Not satisfied by this kind of work, he decided to push himself to more risky endeavors. He started photographing international events that summer in Panama (the country where he picked up surfing) shooting civil unrest. From that period on, he has been more and more drawn into this career, as he covered stories, in the US, Western Europe, Chiapas, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Congo, Ivory Coast, Syria, Lebanon, Georgia, and Nepal.
In the past two years he has been concentrating on conflict around the world, but more specifically on the Caucasus - A region, which attracted him since spring 2001, He first went to Armenia and worked on a photo essay about Ex. Soviet heavy industrial cities in Armenia, and its consequences today. He returned to the Caucasus in the spring 2004 with a more concrete work in mind. He wanted to photograph the ethnic problems in the South Caucasus, through war and various social problems.
He covered the war in Karabakh for one month in may 2004, while photographing the life of locals Karabastis. He returned to the Caucasus in September 2004, but this time in Georgia to cover the war in South Ossetia. After seen some pretty heavy combat, he decided to enter the Pankisi gorge to live and photograph Chechen refugees living there.
In February and March of 2005 he covered the war in Nepal, working with the Maoist army, then with the Royal Nepalese army. He worked there again in the fall 2005 covering the war with the Maoist, as well as working on a story on human trafficking. He has also covered the war in Southern Ethiopia with the OLF, and planning in returning to Ethiopia to follow suit.
Jonathan Alpeyrie is a Contributor for Getty Images/AFP.
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