Huw Evans Agency

About Huw Evans Agency

Huw Evans Agency is the biggest picture agency in Wales, a Cardiff-based press photography business supplying news, sport, features and commercial pictures to national and regional media. Founded in 1993 when press photographer Huw Evans took over the Dennis Stephens Agency, it has grown into the dominant provider of press imagery in Wales, holding official photographer status with the Principality Stadium, the Welsh Rugby Union and the country's leading rugby and cricket teams. Its photographers cover everything from international rugby at the national stadium to football across the English and Welsh leagues, and its archive of news and sports images stretches back decades. From its base at Cwrt y Parc, Llanishen, Cardiff, the agency commissions work across Wales and England and delivers pictures to clients anywhere in the world within seconds of an event.

The story of the agency is the story of its founder: a former Press Photographer of the Year winner and Rugby Photographer of the Year whose career began on the Western Mail and Echo in 1977 and who built, from a taken-over local agency, a business that now sits at the centre of Welsh sporting and news photography. This profile traces that journey, explains the agency's services, and shows how a Cardiff press agency became the visual record of Welsh sport.

History and Founding

Huw Evans began his career in 1977, when he left school and joined the Western Mail and Echo in Cardiff, Wales's national morning newspaper. He trained as a press photographer and passed his National Council for the Training of Journalists qualification, learning the trade on one of Britain's busiest regional news desks. The Western Mail's photographers covered everything from industrial South Wales to Welsh rugby's golden era, and Evans developed the news instincts and technical discipline that would define his later career.

In 1993 Evans set up his own business after working for and eventually buying the Dennis Stephens Agency, an established Cardiff press photography operation. The takeover gave him an existing client base and an archive, and he built on it steadily. His personal reputation helped: he was a former Press Photographer of the Year winner and had been named Rugby Photographer of the Year, honours that carried weight with picture editors across the British press. From that foundation he grew the agency into what it describes as the biggest picture agency in Wales, a claim reflected in the breadth of its official appointments and the size of its archive.

Official Appointments and Sporting Coverage

The agency's standing in Welsh sport is anchored by a portfolio of official photographer appointments. It is the official photographer for the Principality Stadium, the 74,500-capacity national stadium in Cardiff that hosts Wales's rugby internationals, football internationals and major concerts. It holds the same status with the Welsh Rugby Union, the Cardiff Blues, the Ospreys, the Newport Gwent Dragons and the Scarlets, covering the professional game from the regions to the national side, and with Glamorgan County Cricket Club for the summer game.

Beyond the official roles, the agency covers Swansea City, Cardiff City and Newport County home and away, following the Welsh clubs through the English football league system. Its photographers have been in the thick of the action at Rugby World Cups, Six Nations championships and overseas tours, and the sports desk regularly works the biggest fixtures in the Welsh sporting calendar. Few photographic businesses in Britain have such concentrated access to a nation's sporting life.

News and Features Photography

Alongside sport, the agency provides news and features photography to the national and regional press. Its photographers are commissioned for breaking news across Wales, from courts and emergencies to politics and community events, and for features work that requires a more considered visual approach. The agency describes its news photographers as being in the thick of the action, and its promise to clients is speed: supplying pictures within minutes of an event, sent anywhere in the world in seconds using the latest digital technology.

The archive underpins this work. The agency's collection of news and sports images stretches back decades, with older material tracing the Dennis Stephens Agency era and its own coverage from 1993 onwards. For picture desks needing a historic image of a Welsh sporting moment or news event, the archive is a first port of call, and the agency licenses stock images to newspapers, magazines and television broadcasters around the world.

Commercial and PR Photography

The agency also works for many blue-chip companies, providing images for press releases, brochures and industry publications. This commercial and public-relations arm covers indoor and outdoor events, staff portraits and headshots, awards ceremonies and corporate launches. Photographers based in Cardiff take commissions across Wales and the UK, and the agency has increasingly developed the PR and corporate photography side of the business alongside its press work, giving clients access to the same experienced operators who cover the national stadium on a Saturday.

The commercial offering reflects the economics of modern press photography: the skills that make a great sports photographer — anticipation, technical reliability under pressure, fast delivery — transfer directly to corporate events and PR briefs. The agency pitches this versatility explicitly, offering clients the benefit of its photographers' vast experience to get the most out of any shoot.

Coverage Area

Although based in Cardiff, the agency carries out commissions across Wales and England. It regularly works in Pembrokeshire, Llanelli, Swansea and Newport in Wales, and in Bristol, Cheltenham, Gloucester, Worcester, Birmingham and London in England. This footprint reflects both its Welsh heartland and the travel patterns of the sports it covers: football away days, rugby tours and corporate assignments take its photographers the length of the Severn corridor and into the Midlands and the capital.

The agency's main office is at Cwrt y Parc, Llanishen, in the north of Cardiff, from where its picture desk coordinates assignments, receives commissions from the national and regional press, and distributes images to clients. Its published contact number is 02920 764311, and it operates around the clock to meet the deadlines of the morning papers and the rolling demands of broadcast and online news.

Technology and Delivery

Speed of delivery is the agency's defining promise. Using the latest digital technology, it can send pictures anywhere in the world in seconds, and it prides itself on supplying images within minutes of an event finishing. This capability was built over the transition from film to digital: photographers who once raced motorbikes with film cassettes to darkrooms now transmit edited images from the touchline, and the agency's workflow is designed around the minute-by-minute deadlines of modern sports and news coverage.

The agency has also added new services as technology has advanced. It offers aerial photography using an unmanned multi-rotor platform, giving clients drone imagery for events, commercial shoots and features work. It provides video and video-editing services, reflecting the growing demand from publishers and corporate clients for moving pictures alongside stills. The combination of archive depth, live-event speed and multimedia capability makes it a full-service visual supplier rather than a traditional stills agency alone.

The Team

The agency is built around experienced press photographers, several of whom have long tenures. One of its photographers joined in 1995 and has covered Rugby World Cups, Six Nations championships and overseas tours, developing over time the public-relations and corporate photography arm of the business. The team structure reflects the dual nature of the work: sports specialists who live the rugby and football calendars, news photographers ready for breaking stories, and operators skilled in the corporate and features briefs that fill the working week.

Huw Evans himself remains the public face of the business. His awards — Press Photographer of the Year and Rugby Photographer of the Year — are a permanent part of the agency's credentials, and his career path from the Western Mail darkroom to agency owner is a classic press-photography story: staff job, reputation built on big pictures, then independence. The agency's identity is inseparable from his name, and its marketing leans on that personal authority.

Industry Role

Within Welsh media, the Huw Evans Agency occupies a central position. As the biggest picture agency in Wales it is the default supplier for publications that need Welsh sport and news imagery, and its official appointments give it privileged access that shapes the visual record of Welsh rugby and football. Its images appear in national newspapers, regional titles, magazines and television broadcasts, and its archive is a significant visual history of Wales from the 1990s onwards, extending further back through the Dennis Stephens material.

The agency also illustrates the economics of the independent press agency sector. Unlike the big international wires, it survives on a mix of official retainers, daily press commissions, corporate work and archive licensing — a diversified model that has carried it through the decline of newspaper pagination and the rise of free imagery. Its survival and growth since 1993, in a period that has seen many regional agencies close, is itself a notable achievement in British press photography.

Recent Developments

The agency continues to operate from its Llanishen base, supplying the Welsh sporting calendar year-round: the rugby season from autumn to spring, the football season overlapping it, and the cricket summer with Glamorgan. Its official photographer roles with the Principality Stadium and the Welsh regions keep it at the centre of the biggest events in Welsh sport, from Six Nations internationals to European club rugby. The addition of drone photography and video services shows a business still adapting its offering to what clients will pay for.

For picture editors, the agency's value proposition has barely changed since 1993: the right photographer, in the right place, delivering the picture fast. What has changed is the speed and reach of delivery — seconds to anywhere in the world — and the breadth of the archive that backs every new assignment. Three decades after Huw Evans bought the Dennis Stephens Agency, his name remains the brand on Wales's biggest picture agency.

Official website: huwevansimages.co.uk