Martín Chambi was born in a poor Quechua family. He was born in one of the poorest parts of Peru, at the end of the nineteenth century. His father worked in a gold mine by the River Inambari. Martín sometimes went to work with his father too. He saw his first photographer there at the mine. Chambi learned the basic techniques from a photographer at the Santo Domingo Mine. This meeting fired his ambition.