The tear-filled eyes of Aida, a woman severely injured during Syria’s civil war, were as green as those of his grandmother Tete Mary and grandfather Yamil, who had emigrated from Homs to Buenos Aires at the beginning of the 20th century. Years later, he found himself in Syria covering the conflict for The Associated Press, contributing photographs to a group entry that was later awarded the Pulitzer Prize.

At the age of eighteen, while backpacking through Bolivia, Peru and Chile, he discovered a vast world beyond his suburban upbringing. It was there that he encountered what he would later call "Latinoamérica profunda" – a profound Latin America, both beautiful and harsh – which became central to his photojournalistic focus. The camera became his essential tool, allowing him to document, almost anthropologically, remote and overlooked realities: men labouring in informal gold mines deep in the Amazon jungle, or young Central American gang members arriving in emergency rooms after violent clashes.

He began concentrating on marginalised communities at the start of his newspaper career in Argentina during a severe economic crisis. Throughout his work in Latin America and internationally, he has focused on the downtrodden, approaching his subjects with empathy while documenting their circumstances. Carrying with him the resilience of his Syrian immigrant ancestors, he learned early on never to give up, even in the face of failure.