Christoph Bangert was born in a rural part of Western Germany in 1978. He studied photography at the Fachhochschule Dortmund and at the International Center of Photography, New York. He graduated from ICP in 2003. Bangert was a semi-professional rally driver for four years. In 2002 he shipped an old green Landrover from Germany to Buenos Aires and in six months, drove from Argentina, 22,000 miles to New York City. The pictures he took on this trip were published in his first book titled Travel Notes.

(powerHouse 2007)

He has worked in Palestine, Japan, Chad/Darfur, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Pakistan, the US, Lebanon, Nigeria, Zimbabwe and Iraq, where he spent about nine months in 2005 and 2006 on assignment for the New York Times. His work from that period is collected in IRAQ: The Space Between (powerHouse 2007) and IRAK: Schweigendes Land (Fackelträger Verlag 2008). His pictures have been published in Stern, Time, Newsweek, The New York Times Magazine, GEO, Der Spiegel, Vice, Courrier International, Neon, Days Japan, Sports Illustrated, Zürcher Tagesanzeiger and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

He has exhibited in Germany, New York and at the Musee de L’Elysee in Switzerland where he was selected as one of 50 emerging photographers in the world for an exhibit and book titled: reGeneration (Thames & Hudson 2005; Aperture 2006). He was chosen as one of PDN’s 30 emerging photographers and for the 2007 Joop Swart Masterclass.

He won a POYi Award of Excellence for an online multimedia presentation he did for the New York Times about his work in Iraq. In 2008 he won an Honorable Mention at the World Press Photo Award for a picture from Afghanistan.

He recently returned from a 14 month long overland journey with his Land Rover across Africa.

Christoph Bangert is married and lives in New York.