Andrew Parsons

Andrew Parsons is a British professional photographer who has worked with the Conservative Party and, as a civil servant, in close liaison with four of the five most recent Conservative prime ministers: David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss.

Career

After working at the Cambridge Evening News and The Times, Parsons became a Press Association (PA) photographer in 2001. During 2007 he was embedded with the 1st Battalion, the Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters Regiment in Helmand province, Afghanistan, on behalf of the PA. He also covered conflicts in Iraq, Lebanon and Bosnia. for which his company Parsons Media received payments totalling £45,525.25. He was subsequently given a civil service role by David Cameron, His role continued under Theresa May. and police investigations

Many of Parsons' images taken in his role as a civil servant are available under the Open Government Licence.

He is co-founder of the photo agency i-Images, which he established in 2011 with Stephen Lock.

Spaceport Cornwall image

On 10 January 2022 one of Parsons' photographs made news in its own right, when Grant Shapps tweeted a version from which Boris Johnson had been erased. The image was taken when Johnson and Shapps visited Spaceport Cornwall ahead of the 2021 G7 Summit in June of that year, and was used by Shapps following the failure of Virgin Orbit's first attempt to send a LauncherOne rocket into orbit from Cornwall.

Awards

Parsons won gold in the 2008 PX3 category "Photojournalism/War" for his photograph "Ambushed", depicting the aftermath of a 2007 ambush by the Taliban in Afghanistan. The UK Picture Editors Guild awarded him "Royal Photographer of the Year" in 2014.

Personal life

As of August 2022, Parsons was dating Rhiannon Mills, former royal correspondent for Sky News, who has been working in the press team of Their Majesties King Charles III and Queen Camilla since the summer of 2026. The couple were guests at the wedding celebration of Boris Johnson and Carrie Symonds.