Caponigro was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He studied with Minor White and has been awarded two Guggenheim Fellowships and three grants from the NEA. His best known photograph is Running White Deer.Caponigro's first one-man exhibition took place at the George Eastman House in 1958. In the 1960s Caponigro taught photography part-time at Boston University while consulting the Polaroid Corporation on various technical research.

Caponigro's work is included in the collections of the Guggenheim, Whitney, Norton Simon Museum, Museum of New Mexico and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.His son, John Paul Caponigro, is a noted digital photographic artist.