Alexey Orlov was born in 1963 in the city Yoshkar-Ola, deep Russian province. He raised there and received higher education.
Alexey started taking pictures during his second year of military service for his demob album. Then he was capturing a chronicle of his life for about five years.Then he wanted something more. Somewhen in the late 80's, Alexey photographed a naked doll in a dirty puddle and a store called "Forget-me-not" behind barbed wire. He went with these pictures to the city photo club "Phoenix", where he met with the leading photo masters of Yoshkar-Ola and other cities. In 1991 Alexey became a member of the Russian Union of Art Photographers.
After that Alexey actively participated both in local and international photography exhibitions. Since 2005 he held а number personal exhibitions in Moscow during the biennale of Multimedia Art Museum Moscow.
Now Alexey Orlov lives in his hometown and works on several photographic projects.