Born in Palo Alto in 1968, Hancock graduated from Princeton University before studying cultural anthropology at Columbia University, receiving a Doctorate in 2001. These studies inform his fine art photographic work, which spans a wide range of aesthetic and technical categories. Fascinated since youth with the mechanics of photography, Hancock maintains an active hand in all aspects of producing and printing his work. Indebted to a range of distinct historical moments and movements (from romantic landscape to street documentary to contemporary conceptual), his work combines a devotion to the tools and craft of fine photography, while at the same time maintaining a slight distance from the field. Hancock lives and works in Brooklyn, where he is currently Coordinator of Critical and Visual Studies at Pratt Institute.