Ventura Formicone was born in Notaresco, a little village in the hills between the Gran Sasso mountain and the Adriatic Sea. Until he was 24 years old, photography was a vague notion of how photos from his childhood were produced by an old Leica camera, a legacy from his father, who died prematurely at the age of 40. After completing secondary school, Ventura moved to Bologna to study agronomy at university. During his time in Bologna, he became interested in photography and using his father’s old Leica, he loaded film into the camera and produced his first photos. In those formative years at university, almost by chance, he produced his first professional work as a photographer. After completing his degree at the university, Ventura worked briefly as an agronomist in a vineyard in Tuscany, where he finally took the decision to work as a photographer, full-time. He moved to Madrid, where he started to explore and develop his photographic language, and the uncertain grains of black and white film become his favourite form of expression. Ten years ago, he started to work in the field of development in collaboration with several NGOs and UN agencies, with a focus on the Middle East. Ventura has held several exhibitions of his work, including "Suspended Lives", a controversial work on Palestinian women political prisoners, which was launched in Madrid in 2011. He eventually moved to Jerusalem, where through the turbulent nature of the region, he transitioned into photojournalism.
He is currently living in Istanbul with his wife and her two children.