Gill began photography at a young age. In 1985, while still at school, Gill began work with a Bristol-based photography company, copying and restoring old photographs. Two years later, he began working full-time in a one-hour photo lab.In 1992 he enrolled in a Photography Foundation course at Filton College in Bristol and, a year later, began work at Magnum Photos in London. In 1997 he become freelance photographer.
Gill’s photographs are held in private and public collections and have also been exhibited at London’s National Portrait Gallery, The Victoria & Albert Museum, Decima Gallery, Agnes B, the Victoria Miro Gallery, Galerie Zur Stockeregg, the Gun Gallery, The Photographers' Gallery, Palais des Beaux Arts, Leighton House Museum, and Haus Der Kunst.
Gill's photographs have appeared in international magazines including The Guardian Weekend, Le Monde 2, Granta, The New York Times Magazine, Tank, The Telegraph Magazine, I-D magazine, The Observer, Blind Spot and Colors.
According to Martin Parr at Art Goes Heilegendam, Stephen Gill is an emerging force in in British photography. His work is a hybrid between documentary and conceptual art. Gill repeatedly explores one idea in a way that makes his work fascinating and illuminating. Gill also brings an understated irony into his portrait and landscape photos.
Reviewer Jon Ronson says that Gill’s photographs have the naïve gusto of the old field studies series and is nicely lacking in sarcasm and malevolent irony. Ronson goes on to say that Gill's work is wise and modern and laden with understated details about modern life.
Stephen Gill founded his own publishing imprint Nobody in 2005 in order to exercise maximum control over the publication process of his books. His overriding intention is to make the book the finished expression of the photographs, rather than just a shell in which to house them. Experimentation with materials, and a hands-on, tactile approach to maquette making lead, in many cases, to his finished books having an individual, unique presence. This tactile approach includes materials and techniques such as lino cut printing, letter press printing, mono prints, spray paint, rubber stamps and on occasion entire books are manufactured and assembled by hand in Gill's Hackney studio. Gill considers the bookmaking process to be a key final stage in the production of his photographic works, and he aims to make books that are conceptually consistent with their content. All decisions made during production are therefore directed by the requirements of the work rather than any external influences or considerations.
B Sides - 2010 ISBN 978-0-9556577-4-0
Coming up for Air - 2010 ISBN 978-0-9556577-2-6
44 photographs, Trinidad - 2009
The Hackney Rag - 2009 ISBN 9874902080193
Warming Down - 2008
A Series of Disappointments - 2008 ISBN 0-9556577-0-9
Anonymous Origami - 2007 ISBN 97800954940584
Hackney Flowers - 2007 ISBN 0-9549405-3-9
Archaeology in Reverse - 2007 (afterword by Iain Sinclair) ISBN 0-9549405-5-5
