Since the late 1980s, Stephen Ferry has traveled to dozens of countries, covering social and political change, human rights, and the environment, on assignment for publications such as National Geographic, GEO, TIME and the New York Times. A fluent Spanish speaker, Stephen has developed an understanding of Latin America from over twenty years of covering the region. Stephen’s first book, I Am Rich Potosí: The Mountain that Eats Men (Monacelli Press, 1999), documents the lives of the Quechua miners of Potosí, Bolivia. His second book Violentology: A Manual of the Colombian Conflict (Umbrage, 2012) has become a referential work for the study of Colombian history, armed conflict and human rights. Violentology was awarded the inaugural Tim Hetherington Fellowship.  In 2018, Stephen and his sister, the anthropologist Elizabeth Ferry, published LA BATEA (Icono/Red Hook Editions, 2018).  In 2023, he led a group investigation in support of the Coloimbian Truth Commission, published in book form as La Época: Reportages de una historia vetada (Icono, 2023)

Stephen has won honors from the World Press Photo, Picture of the Year, and Best of Photojournalism contests. He has also received grants from the National Geographic Expeditions Council, the Fund for Investigative Journalism, the Alicia Patterson Foundation, the Howard Chapnick Fund, the Knight International Press Fellowship, the Getty Images Grant for Good, Open Society Foundations and the Magnum Foundation.  In 2020, he was awarded the prestigious Maria Moors Cabot award for Latin American coverage. Stephen is a 2023 National Geographic Explorer. 

Stephen is maestro of the Foundation for a New Iberoamerican Journalism (Fundación GABO) and is on the faculty of the International Center of Photography. In 2016, along with a group of Colombian and international colleagues he co-founded OjoRojo Fábrica Visual, non-profit foundation in Bogotá dedicated to promoting best practices in documentary photography.