He began studying photography at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in Minneapolis–St. Paul and at the University of Minnesota School of Journalism, where he attended a workshop on photo journalism and documentary photography with Donna Schwartz, Nan Richardson, and Philip Jones Griffiths. He worked as a photographer assistant in several commercial photography studios in Minneapolis–St. Pau
l and at North Light Lab, a professional black and white laboratory owned by photographer Tom Berthiaume and Rich Siha. Sandro received a scholarship to attend the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York City, where he studied documentary photography and photojournalism with Joan Liftin and Charles Harbutt. He later interned at Magnum Photos in New York, first as a photo archivist and then as a black and white printer. He began his professional career as a photographer in 1993 in the United States, focusing on editorial work for magazines and publications. In 1996, he returned to Italy, continuing his career as a professional photographer collaborating with major Italian and international publishing houses. In 2000, he became a member of the Italian Journalists Association. Since 1996, he has been part of the Sintesi photographic agency in Rome, and in 2010, of Agence La Collection in Paris. In 2014, he opened Un Ritratto è per Sempre (“A Portrait Is Forever”) in Florence, a portrait photography studio dedicated to people. In 2020, he expanded his practice with a larger studio featuring a professional black-and-white lab, a photo gallery, a fine art color printing area, a digital post production area for photo and video and a spacious photo shooting area. His work is focused on photographic portraiture. Over the years, he has built an extensive archive of portraits of figures from the worlds of fashion, economics, politics, art, sports, entertainment, and music. He currently lives and works in Florence, Italy.
