Luís Pavão graduated in electrical engineering from the Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon in 1981. He went on to study for a Master of Fine Arts in Photography with a focus on museum studies at the Rochester Institute of Technology, graduating in 1989.
Since 1979 he has worked as a freelance photographer in the field of architectural and ethnographic photography, as well as producing personal work in the field of panoramic photography and photographic printing using alternative processes. He is the founder and director of LUPA (Luís Pavão Limitada), a company specialising in the conservation and digitisation of photographic collections.
He is curator of the photographic collections of the Municipal Archive of Lisbon. He is also a professor at the Tomar School of Technology, where he teaches photographic technology and alternative photographic processes. Luís is the author of Tabernas de Lisboa, Fotografias de Lisboa à Noite, Assírio e Alvim, 1979 and 1983, Conservação de Coleções de Fotografia, Dinalivro, 1997, and Lisboa em Vésperas do Terceiro Milénio, Assírio e Alvim, 2002.