Dino Fracchia was born in Milano in1950. At the outcome of the high school he attended university (aviation engineering) for one year. In 1973, at the end of his military service, he abandons studies and starts his career as professional photographer. In 1974 he works for a short period at the photo section of the daily newspaper "L’Unità" ; this has been his only experience as employee. Following a working period in a cooperative with other photographers, he become a free lance, keeping direct links with newspapers and magazines and contributing to various agencies which distribute his files material.

He start investigating present-day subjects, producing reports either on assignement or on personal initiative. In 1976 he cover his first great report on the Friuli earthquake and the recostruction; the following year it is the turn of the Seveso ecological incident, and in the same year he shoots the famous photo of the terrorist shooting in Milano, which symbolizes an era of the Italian recent history. He follows closely the problems of work, industry and trade unions, and pays a particular attention to the spread of new technologies and on their impact on working class structures. In these years he also carries out a report on the survival of Sicilian cultural traditions and on the degradation of the local society; he recorded the birth of European ecological and pacifist movements, and made a survey of Milan municipal workers, which in 1984 was organized as an exibition by the Milano municipality.

In 1982 he starts to follow the problems of armaments, defense and defense industry, following therefor NATO exercises from Norway to Turkey. Among the reports of that period we note: the flood and landslide in Valtellina (Northern Italy, June 1987), the cruise of Italian Navy ships in South America (August 1987), a report from Nicaragua (January 1988), a first trip to Palestine (some of his pictures will be used for a book edited in 1989 by the PLO Information Department in Tunis), and a series of works on Italian daily life problems as drugs abuse and Third World immigration.

In April 1990 he is asked by US editor Collins to be part of the pool of worldwide photographers who take part in "A day in the life of Italy" project.In January 1991, during the Gulf War, he travels for the second time to Israel, while in April he covers for the German weekly "Stern" the ecological incident of the "Haven" tanker in front of Genoa. In September he follows the Italian Army humanitarian mission in Albania and in the following March that in Mozambique, under UN flag. In 1995 he is among the founders of the "Fotografia e Informazione" (Italian photojournalists association), of which cover for some years  the secretary charge. In the same year he wins the first prize at the Fuji-Airone contest, the italian selection for the Fuji Euro Press Photo Award. In January 1996 he follows the Italian Army mission in Sarajevo,Bosnia-Herzegovina, which is part of the NATO-IFOR contingent. During the last few years it works on  arguments inherent the economy and the scientific search and  begins a job on the Mediterranean Sea ; in the October of 2004 it follows the intervention of the Italian army in Iraq.

Dino Fracchia cooperates or has cooperated with various Italian and foreign magazines, among which Panorama, L'Espresso, Epoca, Europeo, Sette, Il Venerdì, La Repubblica, La Stampa, Corriere della Sera, Focus, Airone (Italy), New York Times, Time Magazine, Chicago Tribune (USA),Le Monde, Liberation (France),Stern (Germany), ecc., his portolios have been published in Zoom (French and Italian editions) in Progresso Fotografico and in Photo.