Alberto Cassio was born in Turin, Italy. In that elegant city within view of the Alps, he grew up and studied pharmacy.

After graduation, the pull of fashionable hippie culture and the exotic Bali trail proved irresistible. He fled the Italian provinces for the East, eventually washing up in Thailand just as the country was rapidly modernising.

The newly opened advertising agencies were clamouring for photographers, and Alberto Cassio had a knack with a camera. In this boom time land with non-existent competition, he could shoot a Coca-Cola campaign in the morning and a Pepsi ad in the afternoon.

Soon Alberto was hired by three publishing companies simultaneously, producing glossy in-flight magazines for an unlikely duo of Pakistani and Indian airlines, along with the lifestyle magazine Living in Thailand and the women's magazines Dichan and Looks.

Tiring of travelling the region, he left the magazine business and went into hotel and resort photography, getting hired by every five-star hotel in Thailand at one time or another during the last 25 years.

Alongside that specialisation, Alberto Cassio ventured into the photo stock business, opening Photobank in 1978. The first photo library in Thailand, Photobank thrives today with the world's largest collection of Thai images.

Alberto lives in Bangkok with his two handsome boys, Stefano and Lorenzo.