Tom is a leading authority on digital photography, a photographer, author, educator, TV broadcaster, and traveller. He was was awarded the Hamdan International Photography Award for Content Creator in 2019. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Jinan International Photography Biennial 2024. He won the Thomas Cook award for Best Illustrated Travel Book for his photography of the Marco Polo Expedition which pioneered the modern Silk Road crossing from Europe to China. He has worked as a magazine editor, picture editor, technical journalist, has exhibited internationally and was a university senior lecturer and course leader in photography for over twelve years during which time he pioneered academic links in the former Soviet Central Asia. Amongst his 40+ books on photography is the award-winning Photography - the definitive visual history, his best-selling Digital Photographer's Handbook which has sold over 700,000 copies and translated into twenty languages and the award-winning Digital Photography Masterclass. The presenter for two ground-breaking 6-part BBC series on digital photography, he also presented and wrote an award-winning 8-part photography series for Channel News Asia, Singapore. He has led workshops internationally, including in London, Cape Town, Salzburg, Budapest, Dubai, Manila, Singapore and Auckland. He is a founding member of the Sony World Photography Award, has been jury member for Czech Press Photo, Wildlife Photographer of the Year and Hamdan International Photography Award. A Sony Digital Imaging Advocate for New Zealand and a GettyImages contributor, he lives and works in New Zealand.
