Wes Bell was born and raised in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada, and from an early age was fascinated by art. This led him to a four-year studio-intensive program at the Alberta College of Art, where he received a Diploma in Visual Communications–Photography. Through his continued studies of the history of photography, he later received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography from the Alberta University of the Arts.
With an ardent interest in design, style, and aesthetics, he quickly established a career in fashion photography, first in Milan and London, and then in New York, while travelling extensively on assignments to many of the remote corners of the world. His photographs have appeared in publications such as British GQ, Conde Nast Traveler, The New York Times Magazine, and People. Celebrity portraits include actors Channing Tatum and Olivia Wilde, as well as movie director and fashion designer Tom Ford.
In 2014, after residing in New York for over two decades, Wes returned to Alberta. Today, he focuses solely on art photography, deploying his square medium format film camera and photographing outdoors on location. Wes's analog hand-printed gelatin silver photographs have been widely exhibited internationally, including the recent Oil - Beauty and Horror in the Petrol Age at Germany's Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, and closer to home, Rapt and Callus, a solo exhibition at Contemporary Calgary for the Exposure 2022 Photography Festival. His series Snag was a selected exhibition in Vancouver's 2026 Capture Photography Festival at the Sidney and Gertrude Zack Gallery. Wes is currently working on a photobook project called On The Line.