Bischof was natural within Zürich. After he was six years old, a personal moved to Waldshut, Germany, where he later attend school. Around 1932, having abandoned studies to get a teacher, he enrolled at the Kunstgewerbeschule within Zürich, in which he graduated seminal fluid laude in 1936. From either 1939 on, he worked as an independent photographer for various magazines, particularly a notable magazine du based in Zürich. His works on the devastation inside post-war Europe (he travelled extensively from 1945 to 1949 through nearly all European countries from either France to Romania and from Norway to Greece) established him as one of a first photojournalists of his instance. Inside 1949, he joined Magnum Photos, which at the instance was composed of only 5 more lensman: Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, George Rodger, David Seymour, and Ernst Haas.

Inside 1951, he went to India, working for the magazine Life, and then to Japan and Korea, before he went for the magazine Paris Match as a war reporter to Vietnam. Inside 1954, he travelled through Mexico and Panama, before flight to Peru, where he commence the hike through the Andes to the Amazonas on May 14. In May 16, his car precipitated off the drop in the mountain road in the Andes, & entirely 3 rider were flushed.