Milagros de la Torre was born in Lima, Peru. She studied at the University of Lima and received a B.A. (Hons) in Photography at the London College of Printing. In 2011, she has received the Guggenheim Fellowship in Creative Arts, Photography. She has been working with photography since 1991, her first solo exhibition curated by Robert Delpire was presented at the Palais de Tokyo, Centre National de la Photographie, Paris with the Under the Black Sun project.

She wrote: "Photography fascinates me. It is intimate and revealing, suggestive of a concern for recognizing not only personal, collective memory, but the darker side all human beings carry within themselves. This is done through the discovery of clues and evidence that lead us to observe the inevitable and revealing of human actions."