Alvaro Leiva was born in Madrid, Spain. Apart from a single course of photography, he is largely self taught. In 1989 he started shooting professionally.

One hundred of his photographs on the Amazon, Niger, Mekong, Ganges and Mississippi rivers were exhibited during the 2004 FotoFest in Houston, Texas. His work on The River People was selected Finalist for the W. Eugene Smith Grant on the years 2004 and 2006 and a book about this work on the rivers has been publish by the Zaragoza 2008 Universal Exhibition.

His project Black River about the african american community on the Mississippi river was shown on Les Soirées at Visa Pour L´Image 2007.

A monograph about Leiva recent project, Mare, was recently published and a touring museum exhibition about this work will be available through 2010.

Other current projects are about the effects of the global warming, the transition days in Cuba and people waiting