Alain Keler was born in Clermont-Ferrand on September 20, 1945. He began travelling when he was 17. In the early seventies he lived in New York where he purchased his first Leica, and took on his first photography assignments. He returned to Paris in 1975 where he began a career with the French news agencies Sygma and Gamma. As of the nineties he opted for the independence of freelance photography. In 1989 he was a founding member of the Odyssey Agency; in 2008 he joined the MYOP photography collective. He has worked on many long-term project, in particular dealing with minorities. He has received many recognitions, including the World Press Award (1985), the Grand Prix Paris Match du photojournalisme (1986) and the W. Eugene Smith Foundation Prize (1997).
