A retiring man, in his older brother’s words, Elliott Franks spoke mainly through the lens of his camera.
To many of those who knew him in the last three years of his life, he was the photographer who captured every pro-Israel protest organised by campaign group Stop The Hate – steady in hand and equally steady in character.
Born on August 30, 1963, to Myra and Phil Franks, he grew up in Kingsbury, and attended Yavneh primary school in Wembley. The second oldest in a family of four, his childhood was one of stability and normality.
He was a keen autograph collector – something that may have inspired his future career.
While some siblings progressed on from Yavneh to Jewish secondary schools, others attended secular state schools. Franks went to Kingsbury High, where he found himself in the same class as Conservative politician Sir Grant Shapps.
When Franks was nearing the end of his teenage years in 1981, his parents decided, seemingly out of the blue, with no preparation and no plan in place, to pack up the whole family and start a new life in California.
But after half a year, they realised their new life wasn’t working, and returned home.
In these six months, Franks found himself thrown into a new life with no plan in place for his future, so he took a job at his uncle’s vitamin business, packing pills.
Eventually, he got another job at a travel company, where he began working on its newsletter, and taking photographs.
Franks had always been artistic, and painted in his spare time. However, his only customers were his siblings.
In the 1990s, he became a professional photographer and went out on his own, focusing on portraits for stars in the theatre and ballet scene. He soon became the go-to photographer in the industry, and his pictures appeared on countless front pages all over the country.
Later in his career he began photographing political events at Downing Street, but his main area was always the world of theatre.
He won numerous awards in his career, one of which was the Outstanding Commitment award from the Surrey Community Development Trust in 2009, which the JC published a story about.
Franks focused all his efforts in life on photography. It was his hobby as well as his career. His older brother, Russel, recalls never seeing him without a big bag of cameras in hand at family events.
Perhaps, Russel believes, it is because of this devotion, Franks never married, or had a family of his own, and never settled in one place, moving round frequently from one London postcode to another.
Franks was a huge supporter of Israel, and he truly became a pillar of the community in 2023, when he became the official, voluntary photographer for the then-newly formed campaign group which would become Stop The Hate.
Attending every protest and counter protest organised by the group, Franks ensured that Stop The Hate’s efforts would not go unnoticed, and has countless credits for many of the protest pictures seen across the national press, with many appearing in the JC.
Franks died at his London home at the age of 62, around a month before his birthday. His cause of death remains, as of the time of publication, unknown.
He is survived by his siblings, Russel, Adrienne and Vanessa.
Elliott Franks
Born August 30 1963, Died July 2026
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