Essdras M. Suarez was born in Panama City, Panama. He graduated with a degree in Journalism specializing in photojournalism at the University of Florida .

While pursuing his photojournalism degree, he worked as an assistant/intern for National Geographic while on assignment in Central and South America, with the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel and the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, Colorado. As a photographer for Rocky, Essdras shared the 2000 Spot News Pulitzer with his coverage of the Columbine Massacre of 1999. That same year he was the recipient of a Robert F. Kennedy International Photojournalism award ,a Headliner Award Feature Photography award and a News Press Photographer Association award for his story called “Osveli’s Journey” in which he documented the story of a 14-year old Guatemalan boy who died in a car accident while being smuggled into the US.

Throughout his 14-year professional career as a photojournalist, Essdras has received awards by the Colorado Press Association, Boston Press Photographer’s Association, the Society of Newspaper Design, the Thomas Lowell Travel Writer’s Association and a second Headliner national award.  Recently, Essdras won top honors from the Association of Editors & Publishers for the past two years.

Among his international news assignments, Essdras has covered the war in Iraq, the Indonesia tsunami aftermath, the 2004 Haitian coup with president Jean Bertrand Aristide, the Gaza strip evacuation in Israel and the re-patriation of nuclear material from Romania to Russia.

He was hired at the Boston Globe in 2002 where he still works as a staff photographer. While there he has developed a niche in travel photojournalism. These assignments have taken him throughout the world to the African desert, the Russian tundra and the tropical jungles of South East Asia.

Essdras has recently been focusing his attention on teaching photojournalism and photography workshops in New England , Costa Rica, Panama and El Salvador.