Prof. Paul Wenham-Clarke

This year Paul won The Association of Photographers Lecturer of the Year Award but he has been a professional photographer and educator for over twenty-seven years and has won eighteen national and international professional photography competitions or awards.

In 2010 he won an Association of Photographers Gold Award (commissioned documentary category) which is considered to be one of the most prestigious awards in the industry, other recipients include Nadav Kander and Simon Norfolk. The work entitled Hard Times was commissioned by The Big Issue Foundation and was a solo exhibition at St Martin-in-the-Fields Gallery in the Crypt for four months in 2010 and 112,000 visitors attended and it was featured on the BBC2 Culture Show.

In 2013 his project The Westway: a portrait of the community was part of his Research Fellowship activities and so was funded by AUB. The resulting work was also shown as a solo exhibition at St Martin-in-the-Fields Crypt Gallery, 52,000 people attended.

The Urban Gypsies, part of the Westway project, was shortlisted for The World Photography Organisation’s Awards 2013. The images went on to be shown at Somerset House, and at the Victoria & Albert Museum as part of the Gypsy Roma Traveller History Month. One of the images from the show (Cindy & Shirley age ten, hold Terry on his Christening day) was selected for the Taylor-Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition 2013 and was shown at the National Portrait Gallery.

The Urban Gypsies went on to be published in hard back in June 2019 by Hoxton Mini Press and sold out at the stands at Photo London in May 2019.

Paul made the change from an advertising and commercial photographer to a documentary photographer in 2004 when he made a personal project called When Lives Collide. This work examined the loss of life on a British roads and was sponsored by Green Flag Motoring Assistance. First shown at The OXO gallery on the South Bank the work went on to tour the UK, and was even shown in Greece in 2010 (Crete & Athens).

2018 Paul was included in The Association of Photographers AOP50 exhibition Images that define an age which celebrated the association’s fiftieth anniversary. Thousands of images were considered from over the last 50 years and only 60 were selected.

In 2019 work from Paul’s new project Our Human Condition was a winner in the British Journal of Photography’s Portrait of Britain Competition.

For the first 17 years of his career, Paul worked as a commercial and advertising photographer shooting for major brands including Hitachi, Bayer, Quantel, 3M UK PLC, Hoover, Rowenta, British Aerospace, General Electric Company, British Telecom, Suzuki Motors, Daler Rowney and many more.

He was one of the very first photographers to use digital technology and worked with Quantel the British company that invited digital manipulation. For his groundbreaking digital work, he was awarded the Innovative Photographer of Europe award in 1995.

Later in his career, he gradually switched from an advertising photographer to a documentary photographer and in 2010 won an Association of Photographers Gold Award for his commissioned documentary work Hard Times. This award is considered one of the most prestigious professional awards and is internationally recognised, other winners include internationally renowned practitioners such as Nadav Kander and Simon Norfolk.

From 2006 to date he has concentrated on documentary work and has had 17 solo exhibitions including two at St Martin-in-the-Fields Gallery in the Crypt, Trafalgar Square with a combined attendance of 167,000 visitors. He has been part of group shows at National Portrait Gallery, The Victoria and Albert Museum and Somerset House. His work was featured on the BBC2 Culture Show and has been seen on numerous BBC television local news programmes and he has been interviewed by BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio London.

• The Association of Photographers (2000–2019)
• Fellow British Institute of Photography (1994–2019)

• 2020 Association of Photographers Lecturer of the Year.
• 2019 BJP Portrait of Britain – Winner
• 2018 BJP Portrait of Britain – Shortlisted
• 2017 Life Framers Awards & Exhibition: Shortlisted.
• 2015 Hasselblad Masters Awards: Shortlisted.
• 2013 The World Photography Organisation Awards
• Shortlisted in the people category.
• 2010 Gold Award Winner: Documentary Series.
• 2006 Overall Winner. The Association of Photographers Open Competition.
• 2006 Professional Photographer of the Year. Awarded by The Professional
• Photographer Magazine.
• 2002 Portrait Photographer of the Year, British Institute of Professional Photography
• 2002 Winner of the 'People' category of the. The Association of Photographers Digital
• Awards
• 2001 Winner of the 'Place' category of The Association of Photographers Digital
• Awards
• 2000 Winner of the 'Still life' category of The Association of Photographers Digital
• Awards
• 2000 European Winner, The Commonwealth Photographic Competition.
• 2000 Lichfield Award Winner. British Institute of Professional Photography.
• Awarded for the most innovative image of people.
• 1999 Commercial Photographer of the Year. British Institute of Professional
• Photography.
• 1999 Winner of the Commercial Break Competition. Professional Photographer
• Magazine.
• 1997 Illustrative Photographer of the Year. British Institute of Professional
• Photography.
• 1997 Industrial Photographer of the Year. British Institute of Professional
• Photography.
• 1996 Industrial Photographer of the Year. British Institute of Professional
• Photography.
• 1995 European Innovative Photographer of the Year. European Super Circuit.
• 1992 Peter Grugeon Award for the Best New Fellowship of the British Institute of
• Professional Photography.
• 1991 Peter Grugeon Award for the Best New Associate of the British Institute of
• Professional Photography.