His family moved to San Pedro, California in the early 1960s.[1] He graduated with his MFA from the University of California, San Diego, in 1974, after having obtained his BA in biology from the same institution. He began making art in the early 1970s, staging performances, building installations, and producing photo series. Sekula practiced what he called "critical realism", informed by Marxist thought, documentary photography, and conceptual art.[2]