After graduating as an architect, Marcelo Isarrualde moved to New York to complete his academic education at the Columbia University supported by the prestigious Fulbright Advanced Research Award grant. He initiated his professional career as a photographer for press media. During this period he has been selected to represent his country at the Journalistic photography of La Plata workshop given by Sebastiao Salgado and many other celebrated photographers. Subsequently he investigated and worked in fashion, portrait and architecture photography.

From 2000 to 2007 he worked as a Director of photography at the photography department at Hymsa/Edipresse Editorial Group in Barcelona. He currently works freelance for various editorial and publishing companies, Specializing in portraiture and reportage he also undertakes assignments for advertising companies.

His work is well known in different international events, standing out the following among others: The Latin American meeting of photography, La Havana (1984) and Caracas (1993),FotoFest, Houston, Texas (1994) and Fotogramas, Montevideo (2007 and 2011).

His work has been exhibited in Montevideo, Buenos Aires, San Pablo, Medellín, Caracas, La Havana, New York, Madrid and Barcelona. Some of his work belongs to private and institutional collections in Uruguay, USA and Spain and have been published in specialized media.

During 2000 the photo book Raluy Circus has seen the light. In September 2011 he began an on line publication about studio and on location lighting techniques which has had over 127,000 downloads. Since last January he is a Profoto Brand Ambassador, leading company in the professional photography lighting sector.