Dmitri Baltermants was born in the Soviet Union in 1912. During the Second World War Baltermants worked for Izvestia and became one of Russia's best known photographers. He covered Operation Barbarossa and the defence of Russia's major cities. His most famous images were made at Kerch where the German Army killed more than 176,000 men.

After the war Baltermants worked for the weekly news publication, Ogonyok. He was also the official photographer when Nikita Khrushchev made visits abroad. Dmitri Baltermants died in 1990.