Paolo Woods

Paolo Woods (born August 18, 1970) is a Dutch–Canadian photographer, director, curator and teacher. He mainly works on long-term projects combining photography with investigative journalism. He is a contributing photographer for National Geographic and his work is regularly published worldwide in magazines such as Time , Le Monde , Geo , Internazionale , Newsweek , etc.

His work has been shown in solo exhibitions in France, the United States, Germany, Switzerland, China, Haiti, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Spain, as well as numerous group shows around the world.

His photographs are in private and public collections including the Musée de l'Élysée (Lausanne), the Bibliothèque nationale de France , The MAST Collection . Between 2022 and 2025 he has been the artistic director of the photo festival .

Biography Paolo Woods grew up in Italy in a Dutch-Canadian family. From 1991 to 2000 he ran a black and white professional photo lab and a photography gallery in Florence named Print. In 1999 he turned to documentary photography and went to Iran to document the reforms President Khatami was trying to implement. There he met the writer and journalist . From 2000 to 2002, together with Michel, Woods travelled through twelve countries – among them the United States, Iraq, Angola, Kazakhstan and Russia – following the route of oil production and trade, conducting a behind-the-scenes investigation of the industry. In 2002 and 2004 they worked in Afghanistan and Iraq, producing a detailed reportage on the westerners' debacle there that eventually became the book American Chaos. In the same years, Woods, Michel and founded Riverboom, a collective and publisher, later joined by Gabriele Galimberti and Edoardo Delille.

In 2005 Woods won his first World Press Photo award in General News.

In 2007 and 2008 Woods worked across Africa documenting the birth of "Chinafrica", the spectacular rise of the Chinese who were then massively investing in Africa and had changed the geopolitical order (see Africa–China economic relations). The resulting book, coauthored with Serge Michel and Michel Beuret, has been translated to eleven languages and has been acclaimed as the most thorough investigation of the phenomenon, and as an example of art and documentary photography united. It sold more than 40,000 copies in France alone.

In 2010 Woods completed the work Marche sur mes yeux, an intimate portrait of Iran, hoping to overcome the stereotyped vision of the country and show the complexity of its identities. The photographs were widely published and exhibited in galleries and festivals such as the Rencontres d'Arles in France

In 2010 Woods moved to Haiti. For four years he worked there on the project State, which recounts the islanders' experience and describes the dynamics at work in all the developing countries: international organisations versus local government, civil society versus executive power, private versus public money. The project grew three-dimensional in Haiti including a book, coauthored with a prize-winning Swiss journalist , that was translated into Haitian Creole, an exhibition outside Faculté d'Ethnologie (Université d'État d'Haïti) of Port-au-Prince and the outdoor installations across the city realised with the support of local artists. The first exhibition of the project in Europe was hosted at the Musée de l'Élysée in Lausanne.

In an interview with the New York Times, Woods said about his work:

Photojournalists tend to divide the world into good and bad. You constantly find those two elements that we so clearly think define our vision of the world. But things are a lot more mixed. There are not just bad guys and good guys. That is what is interesting to me, to get into the nuances and make images that are not answers, but raise more questions.

In 2013 Woods and Robert published another book set in Haiti, Pèpè.

In 2014, in collaboration with an Italian photographer, Gabriele Galimberti, Woods completed The Heavens, an investigation into tax havens. and has toured worldwide to both critic and public acclaim. The photobook was chosen as among the best of 2015 by Martin Parr, by three curators for LensCulture, and by Holly Stuart Hughes for Photo District News.

In 2021 in collaboration with writer Arnaud Robert he released the project HAPPY PILLS, a 5-year investigation in the relationship between the pharmaceutical industry and consumers that questions whether happiness can be prescribed. For HAPPY PILLS he followed consumers in the United States, Switzerland, Niger, Israel, Peru, Portugal, India and Italy. The project takes the form of: a book published by Delpire ; a film, Happy Pills, released in 2022 , produced by Arte and Intermezzo , that premiered at the in Florence ; an exhibition that toured worldwide, such as Switzerland , Italy , Japan .

Published works

Books by Paolo Woods

, (text); Paolo Woods (photographs). Un monde de brut. Un monde de brut: Sur les routes de l'or noir. Paris: Le Seuil, 2003. . Text in French. Pianeta petrolio: Sulle rotte dell'oro nero. Milano: Il Saggiatore, 2004. . Translation into Italian. Serge Michel (text), Paolo Woods (photographs). American chaos. American chaos: Retour en Afghanistan et en Iraq (2002–2004). Paris: Le Seuil, 2004. . Text in French. Caos americano: Nel cuore della crisi: Afghanistan e Iraq 2002–2004. Rome: Contrasto Due, 2004. . Translation into Italian. Serge Michel, Michel Beuret (text); Paolo Woods (photographs). La Chinafrique. La Chinafrique: Pékin à la conquête du continent noir. Paris: Grasset, 2008. . Text in French. La Chinafrique: Pékin à la conquête du continent noir. Paris: Grasset, 2009. . Updated and expanded edition. La Chinafrique: Pékin à la conquête du continent noir. Paris: Fayard, 2010. . Updated and expanded edition. China safari: On the trail of Beijing's expansion in Africa. New York: Nation, 2009. . Translation into English. Cinafrica: Pechino alla conquista del continente nero. Milan: Il Saggiatore, 2009. . Translation into Italian. China en África: Pekín a la conquista del continente africano. Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 2009. . Translation into Spanish. 中国的非洲 中国正在征服黑色大陆. Beijing: 中信出版集团股份, 2009. . Translation into Chinese. 黑暗大布局 中國的非洲經濟版圖. Taipei: 早安財經文化, 2010.. Translation into Chinese. . Tokyo: Kawade Shobō Shinsha, 2009. . Translation into Japanese. 차이나프리카 중국은 아프리카에서 무슨 일을 벌이고 있는가 = Chinafrica. 에코리브르. . Translation into Korean. Gabriele Galimberti, Wang Wei, , Paolo Woods. Beijing. Yverdon: Riverboom, 2008. . Pieter Hugo, Mikhael Subotzky, Paolo Woods. Three Stories. Luxembourg: Centre national de l'audiovisuel, 2009. . Woods contributes "La Chinafrique". (editor); Annet van den Voort, Paolo Woods, Yadid Levi, (photographers). West. Heidelberg: Kehrer, 2010. . Paolo Woods, Serge Michel. Marche sur mes yeux. Marche sur mes yeux: Portrait de l'Iran aujourd'hui. Paris: Grasset, 2010. . Text in French. Puedes pisar mis ojos: Un retrato del Irán actual. Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 2011. . Translation into Spanish. Land des Lachens: Land der Tränen: Die vielen Gesichter des Iran: Ein Porträt. Munich: Riemann, 2011. . Translation into German. Translation into Persian, freely downloadable as a PDF file. Paolo Woods (photographs), (text). State. État. Arles: Éd. Photosynthèses; Lausanne: Musée de l'Élysée, 2013. . Text in French. State. Arles: Éd. Photosynthèses; Lausanne: Musée de l'Élysée, 2013. . Translation into English. Leta. [Haiti]: Edisyon Fokal, 2014. . Translation into Haitian Creole. Paolo Woods, Ben Depp, Josué Azor (photographs); Arnaud Robert (text). Pèpè. [Vevey]: Riverboom; Lausanne: Musée de l’Elysée, 2013. . Paolo Woods, Gabriele Galimberti. The Heavens. With an essay by Nicholas Shaxson. Les paradis: Rapport annuel. Paris: Delpire, 2015. . Text in French. The Heavens: Annual Report. Southport: Dewi Lewis, 2015. . Translation into English. Arnaud Robert, Paolo Woods. Happy Pills, le bonheur en pilules. Paris: Delpire, 2021. . Text in French.

National Geographic publications

What Makes a Genius?, May 2017 issue Where Street Vendors Run Pharmacies Out of Buckets, June 2017 issue How Picasso's Journey From Prodigy to Icon Revealed a Genius, May 2018 issue Leonardo da Vinci Artistic brilliance endures 500 years after death, May 2019 issue See where Leonardo da Vinci still walks the streets