Since graduating from West Surrey College of Art and Design in 1988, Tessa has worked as a documentary photographer undertaking personal projects and portraits and features photography for various magazines including Observer Life, Guardian Weekend and The Sunday Times magazine as well as a wide range of commissions and residencies nationally and internationally. In 2004, she completed an M.A. in Photography at De Montfort University, Leicester.

As a photographer, she has a particular interest in different landscapes and the way they are shaped by human activity. Working closely with communities and individuals, her work explores people's relationship to the landscape, often incorporating text and sound as part of the finished project.

Tessa's most recent project Hand to Mouth explores the lives of villagers and nomadic shepherds in Romania's Carpathian Mountains. As she walked from village to village, following cart tracks and footpaths through hay meadows and orchards, she spent time with the villagers, documenting seasonal activities surrounding village life and exploring issues of self sufficiency. Made over a period of four years, Hand to Mouth, was first exhibited and published by Impressions Gallery, Bradford in Autumn 2007. Images from this project were also published in 8 photojournalism in June 2005 and shortlisted for the Descubrimientos PHE Award at PhotoEspaña in 2006.

Previous projects include Moor and Dale, which was exhibited and published by The Mercer Art Gallery, Harrogate and shown at various venues in the UK including Hereford Photography Festival, 2004. Lamb, commissioned by The Culture Company, was shown at Impressions Gallery, York, in 2000. Eat Better, Eat British received an Honourable Mention in the Leica Oskar Barnack Award and was shown at Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie, Arles, France in 2000.

Tessa is currently living in Vietnam with her husband and son and is working on a new project looking at domestic labour in the suburbs and villages in and around Hanoi, which will be exhibited and published in 2008/9.

Her work draws attention to observing details which we usually let slip by unnoticed and aims to contribute to the ongoing debate about the changing nature of rural life.