Shaw studied at West Surrey College of Art & Design from 1986-89. In his 2006 monograph Life as a Night Porter, Shaw published photographs taken over a ten-year period whilst working as a night porter at certain London hotels, "all the time he kept his camera with him, recording in black and white grainy photographs the many strange events that he witnessed, taking pictures." In 2004 Alexander McQueen and Nick Knight chose the pictures as the winning entry in an Independent on Sunday fashion photography competition. Shaw works with independent publishers and he has created small editions of several photographic series include: Retrospecting Sandy Hill,Life as a Night Porter, Weeds of Wallasey, horizon icons, Tokyo in HK, The Hunter gets captured by the game. Writing in The Daily Telegraph, journalist John Preston said, "Shaw remains an evasive, almost blurry character who seems to belong in the shadows and who can't bear being stuck in one place for too long." His working practice is mostly negative based, and heavily worked hand printed archival fibre-based black and white or colour prints. He believes in a physical contact between the materials and the photographer that produces them to form a photograph.His subjects range from night life to Landscape.
Publications
Publications by Shaw
Life as a Night Porter.Santa Fe, NM: Twin Palms, 2006.. Edition of 2000 copies.
Before And After Night Porter. Heidelberg, Germany: Kehrer, 2012..
Weeds of Wallasey. Kamakura, Japan: Super Labo, 2013.. Edition of 500 copies.
Retrospecting Sandy Hill. London: Morel, 2015.. Edition of 500 copies.
Horizon Icons. London: ADAD, 2015.. Edition of 500 copies
Sohollondon. London: Morel, 2018.. Edition of 250 copies.
Tokyo in Hong Kong. Hong Kong: Zen Photo Gallery, 2018.. Edition of 500 copies.
The Hunter Gets Captured by the Game. Hong Kong: Zen Photo Gallery, 2019.. Edition of 500 copies.
Golden Bitch. Paris: Inbetween Gallery / Shaw, 2019.. Edition of 250 copies.
Life as a Night PorterPhoto; Erick Franck; Weinstein Gallery; Danziger Gallery; Threesa Luissoti at Paris Photo, 2013; Landskrona Sweden Fotofestival, 2015; Perm Museum of Contemporary Art, Perm, Russia. Part of the photo festival in Perm, May 2012.
Before and After Night Porter, Tokyo Photo, September 2011. Exhibited as a guest of Tate museum and curator Simon Baker.
Weeds of Wallasey, Aura Gallery, Beijing; Zen Gallery, Tokyo, October 2012 – June 2014.
Chris Shaw and Moriyama: Before and After Night,Tate Britain, London, October 2013 – March 2014. Shaw's Life as a Night Porter,Sandy Hill Estate and 'Weeds of Wallasey as well as photographs by Daidō Moriyama.
Weeds of Wallasey,Exposure, Format International Photography Festival, Derby, UK, 2015. Shaw with Alex F. Webb, David Fathi, Francesca Seravalle, Marianne Bjørnmyr, Boris Eldagsen, George Miles, Karl Ohiri, and others.
Horizon Icons, Rue Visconti Gallery, Paris, November 2015