Simone Donati (1977) was born in Florence, Italy, where he lives and works. His photography education started at the Fondazione Studio Marangoni in Florence, where in 2005 he completed a three-year course in photography. He also worked at the Magnum Photos agency in New York City.
Simone received the first prize at the international contest for theatre photography “Occhi di Scena” in 2005, was awarded the honorable mention at the Yann Geffroy Award for the work “My name is Giovanni” in 2007 and selected as one of the three finalists in the portrait category of the Sony World Photography Awards 2008 with his series on the rickshaw pullers of Kolkata.
His photographs are part of solo and group shows in Italy and abroad; they are also published in several italian and international magazines including Le Monde Magazine, Io Donna, Vanity Fair Italy, L’Espresso, D La Repubblica delle Donne, Magazine del Corriere della Sera, Newsweek, Internazionale, Elle Italy, Panorama, Marie Claire US, Luna, IL Magazine, The Guardian and The Times.
He is one of the funding members of the collective TerraProject, that since 2007 works on social, political and environmental issues in Italy and abroad.