He spoke perfect French, he had arrived in France in 1976 to study beyond a degree in agronomy engineering. But he always kept the accent soft and suave and turn of phrases that he kept from his country of origin, Argentina where he was born in 1951 in Buenos Aires.
In Paris he got stung by the bug of photojournalism, he began to work for photo agencies and became correspondant for Time. He returned to Argentina to cover the war of the Falklands in 1982 the photos were also published in Paris Match, Stern and then taken over by television. He runs after the news, but is more and more interested by in depth stories, he joined the International Center for Photography and studied in New York for a year were he acquired a deeper sens of photography and then decided to return to Argentina and started his work on tango, music and dance, but also on people and the crisis the country was going thru.
On his return to France he came to me to present the work that Geo Magazine for which I worked published. He always arrived in my office accompanied by a curly ball more or less white according to the time and the state of the Parisian sidewalks, as I pointed out to him that his companion was forbidden in the building he whistled Impe who went hiding under my desk and did not move until the moment of departure. We never saw one without the other.
Mario was cultivated extremely generous and warm, but he was also known for his impatience and anger, no doubt related to a great need for perfection.
He was for a time distributed by the agency Rapho and worked for magazines in France and abroad, with always a particular tenderness for the magazine Actuel.
Little by little he turned away from photojournalism to take an interest in design and architecture and for twenty years collaborated with the magazine Intramuros, this work is recognized by the world press photo in 1989. He met the best architects and designers and created with a friend a structure allowed him to work in the world of luxury.
He continued but more and more rarely to be published in the press.
He was in Burgundy last weekend, and like Albert Camus on the same road, his car crashed against a tree probably due to a sudden malaise.
