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Manuel Rivera-Ortiz is a published photographer of young adult books. Some of the published credits of Manuel Rivera-Ortiz include Voices in First Person: Reflections on Latino Identity (Simon & Schuster), Percepciones en Blanco & Negro - Colombia (Ediciones Adéer Lyinad, 2009 Fotografia Colombiana).

Manuel Rivera-Ortiz was born into a poor family in the Barrio of Pozo Hondo, outside the Pueblo (City) of Guayama on the Caribbean Coast of Puerto Rico. He grew up in a shack without running water and dirt floors. 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(a 'central' is a mill located in the center of a sugar cane field), and, following the Zafra or sugar-harvesting season, labored as a migrant farm worker in New England and the Mid-Atlantic states.

When Rivera-Ortiz was 12 years old, his father moved with the children to the US mainland in Holyoke, Massachusetts. Rivera-Ortiz 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. Although Spanish is his original language, Rivera-Ortiz graduated cum laude as an English Major from Nazareth College in 1995, and received his Master's degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1998. Following his graduation he worked as a journalist for newspapers and magazines (e.g. Elle, Democrat and Chronicle). He then turned to photojournalism and documentary photography. Rivera-Ortiz lives in Rochester, New York, in New York City and in Zurich.

Manuel Rivera-Ortiz is noted for his social documentary photography of people's living conditions in less developed nations.His photographs are in permanent collections of several museums, including the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film. 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 ("Untouchable") Caste of India and the Aymara living in the arid altiplano of Bolivia. He has also exhibited work from Kenya to Turkey to Thailand. The University of Puerto Rico, in conjunction with the Museum of Art of Puerto Rico (Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico), featured Rivera-Ortiz' work in courses on contemporary photographers. His work has been featured in the April 2008 issue of Rangefinder. In 2009, he founded the Manuel Rivera-Ortiz Foundation for International Photography.

Manuel Rivera-Ortiz is a published photographer of young adult books. Some of the published credits of Manuel Rivera-Ortiz include Voices in First Person: Reflections on Latino Identity (Simon & Schuster), Percepciones en Blanco & Negro - Colombia (Ediciones Adéer Lyinad, 2009 Fotografia Colombiana). Manuel Rivera-Ortiz was born into a poor family in the Barrio of Pozo Hondo, outside the Pueblo ... More