Jonathan Banks is an award-winning British photographer with over twenty-five years’ experience of humanitarian, editorial and commercial photography. He is as comfortable photographing in a shanty town in Africa, as at a garden party in a Royal Palace, or on a trawler in the Atlantic. Banks collaborates with charitable organisations and NGOs documenting important humanitarian campaigns with human rights concerns. Banks studied under the prolific artist John Blakemore and graduated from the University of Derby with a BA hons in Photographic Studies. He cut his teeth in editorial photography freelancing for The Telegraph newspaper and magazine plus various agencies.
Banks has photographed in over seventy different countries, documenting subjects as diverse as mask dancing festivals in Burkina Faso, the effects of the Chernobyl disaster in the Ukraine and the aftermath of 9/11 in New York. His international experience includes working in security impaired areas, where his communication skills and sensitivity allow him to capture subjects in the most challenging situations. He is the longest serving British Red Cross photographer and has exhibited work in support of International Alert and TASSC International. Combined with his creativity and technical know-how, this enables him to deliver award-winning images.
Banks’ photography has been widely recognised by numerous awards including FOTO8, Humanity Photo Awards, Sony World Photography Awards, World Press Photo and the Siena International Photography Awards.
His work has been widely published and featured in several books including the Red Cross’ landmark publication “Reaching Vulnerable People Around the World”. His photography of the health program in Rwanda was published in the 2015 book “Tubeho Neza – Transforming Lives Through Enterprise”.
Banks has exhibited his photography globally including notable shows at the European Parliament, on the Times Square screens in New York, as part of the Exposure Awards at the Louvre, Paris, at the “Beauty of Humanity” Art Basel festival in Miami and as a solo exhibition at the Phillips Collection in Washington DC. His work has been described by one critic as “responsible documentary photography that lacks the predatory or voyeuristic perspective that often plagues the genre.”
