Franco Pagetti is a member of the photo agency VII. His primary focus has been on conflict zones and he has covered Afghanistan, Kosovo, East Timor, Kashmir, Palestine, Sierra Leone, Somalia and Southern Sudan, and most recently Congo, Colombia, Egypt, Libya and Syria. Since January 2003 (three months prior to the invasion of Baghdad) he has been working in Iraq as a contributor for TIME Magazine until the end of 2008. His images have captured the horrors of war, the brief and fleeting flowering of hope after the collapse of the Hussein regime, the rise of insurgent and terrorist groups and the inexorable descent into a bloody sectarian civil war. Working in conflict zones has afforded him the opportunity to observe people and societies at their most extreme, under tremendous duress and as such has witnessed the incredibile heroism as well as abhorrent brutality inherent to war. Many war photographers can capture the blood and sweat of human combat but it takes a special to see into the hearts of those caught in the conflict and give voice to the fragility of human nature. In addition to TIME Magazine, Pagetti has worked on assignment for Newsweek, The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Stern, Sunday Times magazine and Vogue America. His work regularly appears in Le Figaro Magazine, Paris Match, Le Monde, The Times of London, The Independent, Foreign Policy and the monthly photojournalism magazine Days Japan. Pagetti lives Milano (Italy).
