Fields of Battle - Lands of Peace 1914-1918

After reading Geography at Oxford University, Michael St Maur Sheil began his career in photojournalism covering 'The Troubles' in Northern Ireland in 1970 and entered into a career-long association with the New York picture agency Black Star. Since then he has worked in over 60 countries and in 2001 he received a World Press Photo Award for his work on child trafficking in West Africa. In 2005, in conjunction with the late Professor Richard Holmes, he began documenting the battlefields of the First World War as they are today. The resultant work has been widely exhibited and in 2014 his exhibition Fields of Battle - Lands of Peace 14-18 was seen by over four million people during its display in Le Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris and St James's Park in London. In 2015 the Turkish government commissioned him to create a special exhibition for the Gallipoli centenary commemoration. In addition to being an accredited member of the International Guild of Battlefield Guides, he is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a Member of the British Commission for Military History. When he is not getting lost on a muddy battlefield he lives with his wife Janet in Oxfordshire.