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.
Apart from Shaw"s published works with independent publishers he has book created book dummies or small editions (1-10) of several photographic series: Sandy Hill Estate (1989), Budapest Guide (1989), Liverpool Colour (1980s), Night Porter (1993–2008), Soho/Shoreditch (1990s), Jungle (Sri Lanka 2009), Chat et Sourris (2009-2012), Weeds of Wallasey (2008-2012), The Polars (Polaroid portraits), Permanent Russia (2012), Small Mornings (2013) and Joshua Trees (2013). 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 lougitude" 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.
Life as a Night Porter, Rencontres d"Arles festival, 2004.
Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool. Gallery 779, Paris; Australian Centre for Photography (Night Moves), Sydney.
Roy Khamen Gallery, Amsterdam. Paris Photo; Erick Franck.
Weinstein Gallery; Danziger Gallery.
Threesa Luissoti at Paris Photo, 2013. Landskrona Sweden Fotofestival, 2015. Permanent Museum of Contemporary Art, Permanent, Russia.
Participant of the photo festival in Permanent, May 2012.
Before and After Night Porter, Tokyo Photo, September 2011. Exhibited as a guest of Tate museum and curator Simon Baker.
Life as a Night Porter and Weeds of Wallasey, Moscow House of Photography, Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow, May–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 Photography Festival, Derby, England, 2015.
Shaw with Alex F. Webb, David Fathi, Francesca Seravalle, Marianne Bjørnmyr, Boris Eldagsen, George Miles, Karl Ohiri, and others
