Who is Waldo Nilo?

Waldo Nilo is an award-winning photographer whose career spans more than six decades. Born in Chile, he immigrated to the United States in 1963 at the age of fifteen—a transition that reshaped his worldview and awakened a lifelong commitment to photography as a form of record and testimony, intended to bring images and stories back to the Chilean people.

Working across decades, Nilo’s photographic practice encompasses a wide range of subjects, including the Los Angeles hippie movement of 1967, the Vietnam War in 1968, classic black-and-white photography, celebrities, professional sports figures, the Los Angeles riots, California wildfires, Americana and more. During the Vietnam War, he served as a United States Marine and was recruited to the photo department, where his images were featured in Stars and Stripes, the U.S. military newspaper.

After returning from the Vietnam War, Nilo attended UC Berkeley on the GI Bill, exhibiting at the San Francisco Museum of Art.  He published Arte, Oranges, and Bananas—cultural magazines of their time—and has long used the printed page as an extension of his photographic work, allowing images to function as enduring cultural and historical documents.

In addition to his independent practice, Nilo spent thirty years as a staff photographer for a daily newspaper in Southern California, producing images under the demands of deadline-driven journalism. Over the course of his career, he has received more than fifty professional journalistic awards, reflecting both the technical excellence of his work and its historical and cultural significance. His photographs have appeared in American Photo, World Press, and other publications.

After sixty years in California, Nilo returned to Chile with his wife and daughter. For more information please e-mail at waldonilo@yahoo.com .