Hanks developed her career through practical experience in the camera department, working as a clapper loader, focus puller and camera operator on feature films and television drama. Rather than attending film school, she progressed through the industry, learning from experienced cinematographers and directors while developing her understanding of camera movement, lighting and visual storytelling.
Her television credits include Line of Duty, Endeavour, Ackley Bridge, Clique, Temple and Magpie Murders. She was lead director of photography on the BBC series Magpie Murders, directed by Peter Cattaneo, and photographed episodes of Clique, for which she won a Knight of Illumination Award in 2019. Her work on Culprits, the Disney+ crime series, involved photographing episodes five to seven, collaborating with director Claire Oakley to maintain the production’s visual style across new locations and studio sets.
Hanks’ feature-film credits include Hope Gap (2019), directed by William Nicholson and starring Annette Bening, Bill Nighy and Josh O’Connor, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. She also photographed Mile End (2015), which won Best Narrative Feature at the New York City Independent Film Festival and Best Cinematography at the Filmmaker International Film Festival in 2016. Her work extends into experimental and artist films, including In Vitro (2019), directed by Larissa Sansour and Søren Lind and selected as Denmark’s entry for the 2019 Venice Biennale.
Her more recent television credits include Netflix’s Missing You (2024), for which she photographed the first three episodes, and Apple TV+’s Silo, on which she worked across multiple seasons. Her credits also include Kindoki, a feature directed by Penny Woolcock, and the artist film Familiar Phantoms, commissioned by the Whitworth Gallery in Manchester.