Rivera-Ortiz was born into a poor family in the barrio of Pozo Hondo, outside Guayama on the Caribbean coast of Puerto Rico, the eldest of ten children. He grew up in a corrugated tin shack with dirt floors without running water. His father hand-chopped sugar cane in the fields of Central Machete and Central Aguirre in the declining days of the Puerto Rican sugar industry, and, following the Zafra or sugar-harvesting season, labored as a migrant farm worker in New England and the Mid-Atlantic states. , Cuba 2002 When Rivera-Ortiz was 11 years old, his parents separated and his father moved with the children to the US mainland in Holyoke, Massachusetts. The separation from his mother, whom he has not seen since, had a profound effect on Rivera-Ortiz. He attended classes at Mt. Holyoke and Springfield colleges as part of the Massachusetts Migrant Education summer program, where he was offered his first courses in photography and film development. The family later moved to Rochester, New York. After attending East High School Rivera-Ortiz worked as a journalist. In 1995 he graduated cum laude with a B.A. degree as an English major from Nazareth College, and in 1998 he received his Master's degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Following his graduation he worked as a journalist for newspapers and magazines, but soon turned to photojournalism and documentary photography. In 2001, he began traveling as a freelance photographer with an emphasis on social issues and has exhibited his work in photographic exhibitions. Traveling widely, his photography focuses on humanitarian issues often ignored by mainstream media. His work is included in museum and corporate collections, including George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts Berne. In 2004, he received En Foco's New Works Photography Award, and in 2007 the Artist of the Year Award of the Arts & Cultural Council for Greater Rochester. In 2002, he photographed Cuba, comparing the conditions he found there to the Puerto Rico of his youth. He has exhibited photographs showing the dignity of the Dalit Caste of India and the Aymara living in the arid altiplano of Bolivia. He has also photographed people from Kenya to Turkey to Thailand. His work has been featured in the April 2008 issue of Rangefinder magazine. In 2010, Rivera-Ortiz visited Dharavi and Baiganwadi and took pictures of daily life in these two Mumbaislums. In 2011, he documented the September 11 Commemorations in Shanksville, Pennsylvania for the French photography organization 24h.com. In 2012, the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism featured Rivera-Ortiz' work on poverty in the developing world in its collection of 50 Great Stories produced by alumni over the past century. The work of Manuel Rivera-Ortiz demonstrates that social documentary as activism still continues to exist in the modern world. Rivera-Ortiz can be classified as a social realist with his focus on social issues and the hardships of everyday life.
Viajeros: North American Artist / Photographers’ Images of Cuba. Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Art Galleries, 2005. Catalog of an exhibition held at the Dubois Gallery, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, 2 November 2005 - 8 January 2006. "This exhibition consists of 59 artists featured in a multimedia project of over 100 images. It presents photographic essays, videos and single/dual images of Cuba..."
Voices in First Person. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008. Edited by Lori Marie Carlson.. Rivera-Ortiz provides the photographs in what the publisher describes as "A collection of monologues featuring the most respected Latino authors writing today, including Sandra Cisneros, Oscar Hijuelos, and Gary Soto."
The Manuel Rivera-Ortiz Foundation for Documentary Photography & Film is a non-profit private operating foundation headquartered in Rochester, New York. Rivera-Ortiz established the Foundation in 2010 to support underrepresented photographers and filmmakers from less developed countries with awards, grants, exhibitions, and educational programs. The foundation operates an exhibition space in Arles, France.
Collections
Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, NY.
George Eastman House, Rochester, NY.
Lehigh University Art Galleries, Bethlehem, PA.
William Whipple Art Gallery and Museum, Marshall, MN.
