Pio Tarantini was born in Torchiarolo, in the province of Brindisi, in 1950. He went to school at Lecce's Liceo Classico after which he moved to Milan in 1973 where he took a degree in Political Science at the city's State University. His first exhibition on social and environmental issues was held in Brindisi in 1972. While he was living in Milan during the 1970s, he furthered his interests in literature and cinema and embarked upon an eclectic collection of documental photography that experimented with traditional figurative arts.
During the early 1980s, he exhibited his first colour photographs, which dealt with some of Salento's lesser known artistic features. His photographs capturing Lecce's baroque cityscape were published in "Du", a prestigious international art review, to great acclaim in 1987.
In 1985, he compiled a large part of his main work on memory and time, "Il passato e i pensieri" (Past and Thoughts). Alongside "Il giardino interiore" (The Interior Garden), a look at nature, and "Del crepuscolo" (At twilight), which casts a critical eye on a changing world, this stylistically complex piece is part of his "Le montagne oltre il mare" (Mountains overseas) trilogy with which he concluded another cycle of his oeuvre in the mid 1990s.
As a complement to his work as a photographer and a producer of images, he opened "La Camera Chiara" (The Light Room) - a gallery for young and up-and-coming photographers - in Milan to which he devoted several years in the mid 1980s. He also started to write about photography for a range of magazines and publications. He has taught Photographic Language and History of Photography at the R. Bauer Centre (ex-Umanitaria) in Milan, as well as Phenomenology of Styles at the European Institute of Design in Milan. He also holds courses and conferences on these themes at associations, state and public schools.
In the 1990s, he was invited to speak at a host of seminars on photography as part of courses at University faculties in Milan, including Political Science, Letters and Architecture. He also took part in a project on architectural and environmental heritage, "Archivio dello Spazio" (Records of Space), for the Province of Milan and worked on a Visual Sociology project, "Photometropolis", at the Faculty of Sociology at the Bicocca University of Milan. He is currently working with Milan's Gallery "Fotografia Italiana - Arte Contemporanea" and is editing coordinator of "Pagine di Fotografia Italiana".


Since 1985 he has published:

Arte Sacra Minore nel Salento (Ferrara, 1985);
Itinerari Barocchi (Brindisi, 1989);
Pio Tarantini e il suo Angelo (Milano, 1995);
Del Crepuscolo - Tra notti barocche e sere padane, Lecce 1998
Pio Tarantini - Trent'anni di fotografie, Milano 2002
L'ombra del vero, Milano 2003
Scenari, Milano 2006