I’m Charlie and I photograph people.
I take portraits and headshots at my studio in Ilkley and regularly capture theatre, music, arts, television, events, and community projects.
Being partially deaf and growing up in a deaf family who communicated visually through lipreading and sign language, I developed a love of capturing faces and eyes, body language and connections between people.
In a previous life, I was an award-winning screenwriter, winning BAFTA and RTS awards. I was at the height of my career when I felt compelled to escape being in a room staring at a screen every day and pick up my camera again.
I started photographing what I love – people, music, theatre, the deaf community and my local community – and developed my craft. Then I took a leap, and made it my new career, and I’ve never regretted it.
Clients:
Theatre: Royal Court, Leeds Playhouse, Tobacco Factory, HOME, Fuse Theatre, Shakespeare’s Globe, Graeae, Ilkley Playhouse
Music: Opera North, No Limits, Brudenell Piano Sessions, Piano City Milan, Leeds International Piano Competition, Pianodrome, London Jazz Festival, Belle Chen, Sign Festival Bristol, Brudenell Piano Sessions, Leeds Piano Trail
Arts: Wellcome Collection, Studio Spectroscope, Science Gallery, Dada Fest, Deaffest, Deaf Identity, Signlight Film Festival (Los Angeles), Design Museum, Deaffest, Sign Festival Bristol, Flarewave, Creative Cities Convention.
TV/Film: Foundations (Apple TV), Waterloo Road (BBC1), Lumo TV, Retreat (feature film), A Hand Rises (feature film).
Community: Ilkley and District Good Neighbours – Lifted exhibition 2025, Ilkley Art School, Community Cutlery, Friends of Ilkley Pool and Lido, Ilkley Stroke Group.
Find out more about my screenwriting and directing career here.
As a a journalist I’ve written for the Guardian and BBC Online, and I’ve edited the Limping Chicken blog for deaf people since 2012.