Alex Webb was born in San Francisco, California in 1952. Majoring in history and literature at Harvard University, he also studied photography at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts. He began working as a professional photojournalist in 1974. Having been published in major magazines worldwide, Webb joined Magnum Photos as an associate member in 1976, becoming a full member in 1979.

In 1979, Webb began a body of colour work that he continues to pursue today. Since then he has traveled extensively through Latin America and Africa. He has published five books: Hot Light/Half-Made Worlds (1986) and Under A Grudging Sun (1989), From the Sunshine State and Amazon: From the Floodplains to the Clouds and Crossings (2003).

He has also created a technology-mediated artist’s book entitled Dislocations with the Film Study Center at Harvard University (1998-99).

Webb received a New York Foundation of the Arts Grant in 1986, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in 1990, a Hasselblad Foundation Grant in 1998, and won the Leopold Godowsky Color Photography Award in 1988 and the Leica Medal of Excellence in 2000. He has exhibited widely both in the United States and Europe.

See Alex Webb’s photographs looking at climate change and development.