Zed Nelson
British director and filmmaker (born c. 1967)
Zik Nelson (born 1965, 1967 or 1968), known professionally as Zed Nelson, is a British documentary photographer and filmmaker who works on long-term projects about contemporary social issues. He lives in London.
In 1999, his Gun Nation photography series, about guns in America, won the Visa d'or Feature Award at Visa pour l'Image and a First prize World Press Photo award. Prints from Gun Nation are held in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. In 2010, his Love Me photography series, about Western beauty ideals, won a First prize award from Pictures of the Year International. The Anthropocene Illusion is about the fractured relationship between humans and the natural world, for which he was awarded Photographer of the Year at the 2025 Sony World Photography Awards.
Nelson's films include Gun Nation (2016), a follow-up to his book; and The Street (2019), about gentrification in London.
Early life and education
Nelson was born in Uganda and raised in Hackney, East London from the age of three. He left school at 16 without formal qualifications. He later studied fine art photography at the Polytechnic of Central London.
The public source identifies “Zed Nelson” as british director and filmmaker (born c. 1967). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Nelson, British and director.
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This entry incorporates text from “Zed Nelson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.