Mario Proenca was born in 1966 in Lisbon, Portugal were he lives. He has also lived in Boston - USA and studied on both countries. Later he worked as an aircraft engineer at the Portuguese national airlines, in Lisbon and in Azores islands. Passion for visual arts, especially photojournalism and a deep interest in human condition, were the main motivations when a decision to change his life was made and become a fulll time professional photographer after teaching himself photography throughout the time. As a professional photographer, he worked on a freelance basis for several national, international magazines and corporate clients, including the Ritz Carlton Magazine, GEO France, TNT Business Express, Imbibe magazine, Health Edge magazine, VII MENN, RPA Law Office, TV Guia, Sony BMG, PLUS Publishing US, VideoPlus US and Poland, Grazia Neri, EastNewsRussia, EastNewsPoland, PAW, Success From Home magazine, Choosing Success magazine, L'Espresso, Elsevier Magazine, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, and a few other editorial assignments, with reportage's in Portugal, France, African countries and corporate productions. Feeling the need to boost his freelance career as a photojournalist, he started to work, a few years ago, with the US based agency WorldPictureNews (WpN) - N.Y - USA, who has been representing and distributing his work worldwide till Feb 08. His work is now mainly focused on documentary photography, reportage and important news coverage for several international agencies and clients worldwide. In 2008, Mario Proenca was awarded an Honorable Mention in the News category at the biggest Photojournalism contest in Portugal - VISÃO|BES 2008, which had as members of the international jury panel, Jean-François Leroy (Visa Pour L'Image Festival Director), Yuri Kozyrev (Noor agency photographer), Philip Blenkinsop (Noor agency photographer), Nöel Quidu (Gamma photographer) and Susan Smith (National Geographic Magazine).