British fashion and documentary photographer Jamie Hawkesworth’s career had an unlikely beginning when he started taking pictures of reconstructed crime scenes while studying forensics. It was documenting the scenes and an interest in unnoticed characters that led him into photography. Fascinated by the beauty found in the minutiae of everyday life, Hawkesworth began photographing characters and scenes including a Preston bus station (which would later turn into a book and short film).
Jamie Hawkesworth is known for his poetic portrayals of the architecture and people of Britain. Preferring the slower, more tactile approach of analogue photography, Hawkesworth shoots exclusively on film and meticulously develops his own prints. He surveys the nation’s residents with nuance and empathy, bringing a unique sense of mystery to his images – qualities which extend across his documentary and commercial fashion work. Hawkesworth’s lyrical visual language presents quotidian existence as a dreamworld, recasting his subjects as its inhabitants in a radically democratising way.
Hawkesworth was born in Ipswich, Suffolk in 1987. Initially introduced to photography as part of his forensic science degree, he then switched to study the medium, graduating from the University of Lancashire in 2009 with a BA in Photography. Hawkesworth’s Preston Bus Station was published in 2017; On Keeping a Notebook in 2019; and The British Isles in 2021. In 2018 he received the Award for Editorial, Advertising and Fashion Photography from the Royal Photographic Society. He has worked on editorial campaigns, catalogues and commissions for Alexander McQueen, J.W.Anderson and Loewe, amongst many others. His documentary works have been exhibited in London, Amsterdam and New York. His work is held in the permanent collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London and Huis Marseille, Amsterdam.
His work has appeared in publications such as Acne Paper, Double, i-D, LOVE, Vogue, and others. And he’s created visual campaigns for brands like Alexander McQueen, J.W. Anderson, Loewe, Marni, and Miu Miu. Additionally, his installations and shows have shown throughout Europe: A Short Pleasurable Journey Part Two, Clerkenwell, London (2019); A Blue Painted Fence, Clerkenwell, London (2018); Photographs and Sculptures, Soho, London (2018); Landscape with Tree, Huis Marseille, Amsterdam (2017); and more.