[1] Depardon is a mainly self-taught photographer, as he began taking pictures on his family's farm when he was 12.

He travelled to conflict zones including Algeria, Vietnam, Biafra and Chad.

The following year, he left Gamma to become a Magnum Photos associate, then a full member in 1979.

In the 1990s, Depardon returned to his parents' farm to photograph rural landscapes in color and, in 1996, published a black and white road journal, In Africa.

Other notable examples include 1974, une partie de campagne, on the 1974 presidential campaign of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, Reporters (1981) and New York, N.Y. (1986), La captive du désert (1990)[4] and Caught in the Acts (Délits flagrants) (1994).