Born in 1949, Claude Nori discovered photography at 19 in Toulouse thanks to Patrick Chapuis, when he intended to become a director after studying at the conservatory of French Cinema. Together, they held their first exhibition in 1974 in the La Faourette district and are published in the journal Photographie nouvelle. In 1974, he left Toulouse for Paris, becoming friends with the photographer Bernard Plossu and founded Contrejour, a newspaper, publishing house and gallery in Montparnasse which quickly became the meeting place and dissemination of new photography. He published most of the first books by photographer authors such as Guy Le Querrec, Bernard Plossu, Arnaud Claass, Denis Roche, Pierre and Gilles, Sebastião Salgado, Jeanloup Sieff, Gilles Peress, Luigi Ghirri and the humanists, Robert Doisneau, Edouard Boubat, Willy Ronis, Sabine Weiss. After working for Vogue, Daily Telegraph Magazine, he released his first book of photographs, Lunettes in 1976, prefaced by Agnès Varda.

In his pictures he pursues a photo-biographical quest revolving around the flirt (in which the camera plays the role of go-between) of adolescence, Italy and happiness. He exhibits in numerous festivals (Arles, Malmo, Houston, Tokyo, Valencia, Rome, Corigliano, Rio de Janeiro, Coimbra...) galleries and his works are presented in numerous collections. In 1984, he participated to the project (exhibition and book) ‘Viaggio in Italia’ with Mimmo Jodice, Luigi Ghirri, Mario Cresci, Olivo Barbieri, Gabriele Basilico, Guido Guidi and Giovanni Chiaramonte. In 1999, with his wife Isabelle, Claude Nori moved to Biarritz where he founded the Terre d’Images festival and the magazine Photo Nouvelles then Revista, another South-West in 2003. In June 2011, Claude Nori relaunched the new Contrejour editions. In 2012 La Maison Europeenne de la Photographie dedicated him a retrospective accompanied by a catalogue by Contrasto.