Luis Navarro

Born in 1938, native of Antofagasta, Luis Navarro studied fine art at the Universidad del Norte in Chile. In 1976, he moved to Santiago where he began working for the magazine Solidaridad. It was here that he began to be commissioned to reproduce the portraits of political prisoners and executed persons that relatives brought in for identification purposes. He soon began taking his camera out into the streets and became a photojournalist, both for this medium and for foreign agencies. 

He was president of the Association of Independent Photographers and has worked for various media outlets such as Pluma y Pincel, La Época and Fortín Mapocho. Between 1994 and 2004, he was curator of photography at the Estación Mapocho Cultural Corporation and, between 2000 and 2004, photographer at the Chamber of Deputies. 

His most famous images are those denouncing human rights violations in Chile at the height of the military regime. In 1978, he recorded the first discovery of skeletons corresponding to disappeared prisoners in the town of Lonquén. This work put him on the radar of the intelligence services of the time, who eventually ordered his arrest, leading to the formation of the AFI.