multiple images of John Metcalfe playing his violin

Tom Oldham

Tom Oldham | UK

"Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence." Aristotle

Tom is a London-based portrait photographer, shooting portraits of musicians, sportstars and talented folk across the UK and worldwide. He is also the founder of Creative Corners, a programme giving photobooks to photography departments of state schools in the UK. In 2020 he won the Sony World Open Photographer of The Year with his portrait of Black Francis for MOJO Magazine. His portrait of Diva Ivy Balenciaga was selected for the Royal Photographic Society’s International Photography Exhibition 160, and he was a winner in the 2018 BJP Portrait of Britain with his portrait titled Son 2. In 2018, his project 'The Last of The Crooners', was awarded the 2018 Sony World Photography Award for Portraits in the Professional Category. It's a portrait of the Palm Tree pub in Bow, London E3 and is some of Tom's proudest work. In Feb 2018 he exhibited Eldmodur which documents the correlation between the brutal yet darkly beautiful landscape of Iceland, with their athletes' incredible capacity for success in the sport of crossfit. He published a portfolio of images in magazine format, exhibited the project at G. F Smith Show Space in London and you can also find it on YouTube. In 2016 on the longest day of the year, Tom stayed up for 40 hours and shot a portrait per hour from midnight to midnight, for a project called The Longest Day. He also produced a film covering the project, along with a newspaper too. He was accepted into the 2015 Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize with his portrait of Gilbert and George and the 2016 Open Series in the AoP Awards for his work with Riders For Health in Liberia.

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