biography .

Charles Leek is a Manchester-based photographer, filmmaker, producer, director and editor specialising in portrait photography, documentary, fine art and commercial work.

Working professionally since 2011, at first in television and film production roles, Charles first began exploring multimedia platforms at an early age, experimenting with the unpredictable results of the natural limitations of analog technology. Charles’ artistic work is an amalgamative collage of influences, ranging from the filmic imagery of David Lynch, Andrei Tarkovsky, Ingmar Bergman and Krystof Kieslowski, and the work of Joel-Peter Witkin, Annie Leibovitz, Francis Bacon, Richard Avedon and Antoni Tapies.

In late 2015, Charles’s documentary on artist Russell Mills for the band Nine Inch Nails was released to coincide with the bands limited edition release, ‘Cargo In The Blood’. The documentary was picked up by the likes of Rolling Stone magazine, Juxtapoz and Pitchfork, and exhibited as part of Mills’s show, ‘Blueprint for a Storm’, at Dublin’s NCAD Gallery as part of the Offset Design Festival (2016).

His recent photographic subjects include Ken Loach, Brian Eno, Quentin Blake and Christopher Eccleston and award-winning campaigns for The University of East Anglia, The Carnegie Club at Skibo Castle, The University of Salford, Total Media and Manchester Metropolitan University. He has undertaken live music work for William Basinski, Wire and Nine Inch Nails, visual work for The David Bowie Alumni’s 2021 ‘Just For One Day’ Celebration, documentary work for Stop The War Coalition, The Working Class Movement Library and The People’s Assembly and creative campaigns for Moonpig and the BBC.

Charles is from the North-West of England, and currently lives in South Manchester, where he resides with his wife and their two cats. He works primarily in portrait, commercial, unit stills and fine-art photography and a range of different video styles including commercial, documentary and short-form music video. He is currently developing several documentary and visual projects and a gallery show.

For commission, print or media enquiries, please contact leek@charlesleek.com.

Resumé.