Born in Varese from parents who had moved there from Gela, Sicily,[1][2] Chiaramonte graduated in philosophy from the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan.

[4] In 1977, he co-founded with Luigi Ghirri Punto e Virgola, the first Italian publishing house entirely devoted to photography.

[2] Having among his models Hans Urs von Balthasar and Romano Guardini,[2] Chiaramonte's approach to photography aimed at conflating ethics, aesthetics and theology.

[1] He considered photography as an instrument of both meditation and knowledge,[2] and as a meeting point between the exteriority of the world and the interiority of the person.

[5] Often described as a "photographer of the thought", he gave a strong importance to light, which in his work had a philosophical and even metaphisical metaphorical significance.