Stefan Ruiz studied fine arts at Santa Cruz University then painting at the fine arts academy in Venice, Italy. After a photographic commission about west Africa, he began to specialise in the medium. Back in California, he taught art in San Quentin Penitentiary and in parallel worked as a freelance photographer, which he has now been doing for 12 years. He contributes to the New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, Suddeutsche Zeitung, i-D and Interview, and in December 2002 became creative director of Colors (a twice-monthly thematic magazine), which has provided a platform to further explore the issues he holds dear. Now based in New York, he continues to carry out commissions in parallel with his personal research. In June 2005, he is exhibiting his series on Mexico's soap-opera industry in The Factory of Dreams at The Impressions Gallery in York, England.