Dario Mitidieri was born in Villa dAgri, Italy, in 1959. In 1981, he moved to London, where he studied Photojournalism at the London College of Printing. He started to work as a freelance photographer for The Independent Magazine and The Sunday Telegraph in 1986, and since then his work has been published and exhibited worldwide.
His major photographic assignments include: the plight of the Kampuchean refugees in Thailand; the Tiananmen Square massacre; Germany reunification; the cyclone in Bangladesh; the fall of the communist regime in Albania; the destruction of the Ayodhya Mosque in India and the subsequent communal violence in Bombay; Ayrton Sennas last race in Italy; the refugee crisis in Rwanda; the Kobe earthquake in Japan; "children at war" in former Yugoslavia, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Angola; Charismatic Evangelism in the USA, England, India and Korea.
In 1992, he spent the whole year in Bombay documenting the lives of street children. This project resulted in the publication in six languages of the book Children of Bombay, 1994 (Dewi Lewis Publishing, UK, plus five more editions across Europe). He is also the author of the books LUltimo Ayrton, 1996 (about Ayrton Senna's last Grand Prix , published by Giorgio Nada Editore, Italy) and People and Railways, 1997 (about the railway industry in Italy, published by Peliti Associati, Italy).
Mitidieri is the recipient of numerous awards, including: NUJ Photographer of the Year, UK 1989; Photographer of the Year, British Press Awards, UK 1989; W. Eugene Smith Award in Humanistic Photography, USA 1991; Visa dOr, International Festival of Photojournalism, France 1993; Premio Fotografia Periodistica La Nacion, Argentina 1993; European Publishers Award for Photography, Italy 1994; Nikon Photo Essay of the Year, Nikon Press Awards, UK 1996; Leica - C.F.P. Photo Award, Italy 1998; D & AD Awards, UK 2000
Mitidieri's commercial clients include: Barclays, Ericsson, Fila, Jockey, Italian Railways, Phillip Morris, Sony, Territorial Army.