Diana Solis was born in Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico in 1956, and moved with her family to Chicago as an infant, growing up across the Uptown, Pilsen, and Bridgeport neighborhoods. As a teenager she found her political voice through Casa Aztlan and the Chicano mural movement, and at Harrison High School she co-organized walkouts alongside the Black Student Union demanding Black and Chicano studies programs. Through her mother, she also connected with the founders of Mujeres Latinas en Acción, one of the first organizations serving Latina women in Chicago.

In 1979 Solis came out as a lesbian and attended the first national march on Washington for gay and lesbian rights, a turning point that ultimately brought her parents into her strongest allies. She went on to work as a photojournalist and stringer for the Chicago Tribune, documenting Chicago's social movements through her camera during a pivotal era of the city's Chicano and LGBTQ+ organizing. Alongside her photography, Solis built a parallel career as a visual artist, painter, and illustrator, and became a longtime art educator, teaching generations of Chicago students.

Solis's life and work sit at the intersection of the Chicano civil rights movement, the LGBTQ+ rights movement, and Chicago's documentary photography tradition, and her photographs remain an important visual record of the communities and movements she was part of.