Haitian migration through the Panamanian and Columbia Highway

BIOGRAPHY

Born in Paris in 1979, Jonathan Alpeyrie moved to the United States in 1993. He graduated from the Lycée Français de New York in 1998 and went on to study medieval history at the University of Chicago, from which he graduated in 2003.

Alpeyrie began his photography career shooting for local Chicago newspapers during his undergraduate years. He shot his first photo essay in 2001 while traveling through the South Caucasus. After graduating, he went to the Congo to work on various essays, which led to a contributor contract with Getty Images in early 2004. In 2009, Jonathan became a photographer for Polaris images and SIPA press as well.

Alpeyrie’s career has brought him to over 25 countries and cover 13 conflict zone assignments, in the Middle East and North Africa, the South Caucasus, Europe, North America and Central Asia. A future photography book about WWII is in the works.

In 2013, whilst on assignment in Syria, Alpeyrie was kidnapped by rebel forces for 81 days. Alpeyrie was bound, blindfolded, and beaten by his captors. Over the course of his captivity, Alpeyrie kept his spirits up and strove to find the humanity in his captors. He took part in their activities, taught them how to swim, prayed with them, and tried learning their language and culture. He also discovered a dormant faith within himself, one that strengthened him throughout the ordeal. Alpeyrie’s 2014 Anastasia Photo exhibition Capture featured the images he shot on three trips to Syria prior to his abduction. In 2017, Simon & Schuster published his memoir The Shattered Lens.

Alpeyrie has worked as a freelancer for various publications and websites, such as the Sunday Times, Le Figaro magazine, ELLE, American Photo, Glamour, Aftenposten, Le Monde, BBC, and today he is a photographer for Polaris Images, with whom he signed in February 2010.

Alpeyrie’s work has been published in magazines such as Paris Match, Aftenposten, Times (Europe), Newsweek, Wine Spectator, Boston Globe, Glamour, BBC, VSD, Le Monde, Newsweek, Popular Photography, Vanity Fair, La Stampa, CNN, Bild Zeit, ELLE magazine, Der Speigel, Le Figaro, Marie Claire, The Guardian, Bild, and The Atlantic.