Dave Benett

Dave Benett is a British society and celebrity photographer, born in Mauritius in 1958 and currently based in London. He began his career in the Seventies, specialising in news and sports photography before concentrating exclusively on the London party scene. Armed with a Porsche and a Nikon camera, Benett was one of the hardest-working news photographers in town, reporting on everything from the Brixton riots to high-profile trials at the Old Bailey to opening nights at West End premieres.

 

By 1987 Showbiz reporting entered centre stage, and Benett became The Evening Standard’s arts and entertainment photographer, a position he has held ever since. In 2004, Benett became chief entertainment photographer for the Evening Standard and won Celebrity Photographer of the Year Award from the UK Picture Editors’ Guild in 2011 and 2013.

 

During his forty-year career, the award-winning Benett created over 1,000,000 entertainment images for the leading UK national newspapers of all major British names, ranging from HRH Queen Elizabeth II to the Queen of Pop, Madonna. He is responsible for some of the most iconic pictures of the past thirty years, from Liz Hurley in that Versace dress to Liza Minnelli and Princess Diana enjoying a night out together. Due to the exclusivity of his imagery, Benett is a regular contributor to the pages of high fashion magazines such as Vogue, Harpers Bazaar and Tatler, as well as the chief entertainment photographer of the Evening Standard.