Photographer and author Michael Martin was born in Munich, Germany in 1963.  Over the last twenty years, he has undertook 80 expeditions across the deserts of the world, published 15 books, and has given more than 1,000 lectures, including one at the Royal Geographical Society in London.

Michael Martin studied geography, ethnology and politics in Munich. He is both a photographer and a lecturer, whose work has inspired many people in different countries. His books and lectures have won a large number of awards, and his pictures can be seen in major exhibitions and are featured in international magazines.

For Michael Martin, photography is the best medium through which to document an ecosystem and the people that depend on that ecosystem for their livelihood. He sees himself neither as a photojournalist nor as an artist, for the pictures are simply his own very personal means of showing the geographical and social conditions engendered by semi-arid ecosystems and deserts.