Michael Robinson Chávez
Michael Robinson Chávez became seduced by photography after a friend gave him a camera before a three-month trip to Peru in 1988. A native Californian and half Peruvian, Robinson Chávez is currently on his second tour as a staff photographer at The Washington Post. Prior to that, he worked for The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe and the Associated Press. He has covered assignments in over 70 countries including the collapse of Venezuela, climate change in Siberia, violence in Mexico, the historic drought in California, tsunamis in Indonesia and Chile, the Egyptian revolution, life in India and Brazil’s slums, gold mining in Peru, the 2006 Hezbollah/Israeli war and the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Robinson Chávez is a three-time winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Award for Photojournalism and was named second place Photographer of the Year by Pictures of the Year International in 2010 and 2014. He has received awards from the Best of Photojournalism, PDN Photo Annual, Northern Short Course and the Scripps Howard Foundation. His work has been exhibited widely, including the Visa Pour l’image festival in France, the Head On Photo Festival in Sydney, the Corcoran Gallery in Washington DC, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Centro de Imagen in Peru, Imagenes Havana in Cuba and War Photo Limited in Dubrovnik among others.
In addition, he teaches and lectures at workshops and photo festivals throughout the world.