Michael Robinson Chavez has been a photojournalist at The Los Angeles Times since coming from The Washington Post in 2007. In addition to photographing local stories and events, he has covered wide-ranging international assignments in over 35 countries including: the Congolese Civil War, the war in Bosnia, Bantu refugees in Kenya, the Zapatista uprising and national elections in Mexico, the conflict in Israel/Palestine and the US led invasion and occupation of Iraq. He is currently working on a long term project about urbanization in the developing world.
From 1994-95 he photographed events in Central America and Mexico for the Associated Press.
Michael was named Photographer of the Year in 2007 and 2004 by the White House News Photographers' Association and Photographer of the Year in 2004 by the Northern Short Course. In addition he was named 3rd place Photographer of the Year in the Best of Photojournalism competition 2004. He has received past awards from the National Press Photographers Association, the Atlanta Photojournalism Seminar, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, the Society of Newspaper Design and the Pictures of the Year competition.
His work has been exhibited from his native California to Havana, Cuba to the prestigious Visa Pour l'Image photojournalism festival in France, which showed his recently completed 10-year project on Peru. His photos have also been exhibited at the Newseum in New York City and Washington DC, Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, Ojo Ajeno in Lima, Peru as well as Washington DC's Corcoran Gallery. An exhbit of his photographs of Roma in eastern Slovakia is currently being shown at galleries throughout that country.
Michael lives on a farm outside Los Angeles with his wife, three horses, two dogs and a cat.
