Michele Vacchiano was born in Turin (Piedmont, northwestern Italy) in 1951.
Master of Arts in 1979.
He has written several books on photography for important Italian publishers:
Macrofotografia (Close Up, 1985);
La riproduzione fotografica di documenti (Documents Photography, 1987);
La fotografia di paesaggio (Landscape Photography, 1988);
Tecniche di caccia fotografica (How to Photograph Wild Animals, 1988);
Guida al fototrekking (Hiking Photography, 1992);
Fotografia in montagna (Mountain Photography, 1998).
La fotografia in grande formato (Large Format Photography, 2007).

He usually works in the western Alps, and especially in the Grand Paradise National Park, about which he wrote the photographic book La roccia incantata (The Enchanted Rock, 1992) and the essay La montagna abitata (Man's life in the Alps, 2006). He also made some documentary audiovisuals about mountain life.

From 1986 to 1995 he taught Techniques and Aesthetics of Photography at the Journalism School and at the Superior Institute for Communication Sciences of Turin. He wrote the essays L'ordine apparente (The Seeming Order, 1992) and La luce, il segno (The light and the sign, 2006) about the semiology of visual communications.

He has been promoter and president of the Association for Nature, Photography and Alpine Culture Research (ARNICA).

He is the Italian representative of the World Field Photographers Association.

He contributes to several newspapers and photography agencies. From1998 to 2000 he was the editor of "Portfolio immagine", the first Italian on-line magazine for professional photographers. Since November, 1999 he edits the Large Format Photography pages for "Nadir magazine".

His pictures were exhibited in several occasions and have achieved a considerable success.