Two-time Pulitzer prize winner Lucian Perkins graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a degree in biology. He later studied photography with Garry Winogrand and worked on the student newspaper, The Daily Texan. In 1979 he received an internship at The Washington Post, where he worked as a staff photographer for 27 years. He received the "Newspaper Photographer of the Year" award from the National Press Photographers Association in 1994 for a portfolio that included projects in Russia and a “behind-the-scenes” look at the New York fashion shows. In 1995 with Post reporter, Leon Dash, he won a Pulitzer Prize for their four-year study of the effects of poverty on three generations of a Washington, D. C. family through the eyes of the family's matriarch, Rosa Lee Cunningham. In 1996 he was awarded the World Press Photo of the Year for his photograph of a young boy in war- torn Chechnya. In 2000 Perkins won another Pulitzer Prize along with two colleagues at the Post for their coverage of the Kosovo conflict.

While at the Post, Perkins covered major international events, including Russia since 1988, the wars in the former Yugoslavia, the Palestinian uprising in the West Bank, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has also chronicled local and national events throughout the United States, and worked closely with the online version of the newspaper to produce many of their first multimedia, interactive projects. In October 1998, Chronicle Books published his first book, Runway Madness, which accompanied a national touring exhibition.

Perkins also co-founded InterFoto, a non-profit that mounted an annual international photography conference in Moscow, Russia (1995-2005), and organized exchange programs, exhibitions, workshops and a “Russian Photography of the Year” contest. In 1996 and 1997 Perkins curated an exhibition of Russian photography “Russia: Chronicles of Change” that traveled to museums in the United States.

Currently, Perkins is an independent photographer and videographer concentrating on multimedia projects and video documentaries while still pursuing his love for the still image.