Noel Chanan (b. 1939) is a photographer and film maker. He studied photography at college, but first worked as a documentary film maker. He worked at the BBC in this capacity between 1962 and 1966 and then on a freelance basis for 35 years as both a director and an editor.

Chanan's film subjects have included the history of photography, biopics of photographers and pioneers of cinema, and he has written William, Earl of Craven and the Art of Photography (2006) and The Photographer of Penllergare, A Life of John Dillwyn Llewelyn (2013). When Chanan retired from film making he returned to photography full time and, between 1998 and 2003, held three solo exhibitions. Three of his photographic portraits (two of Ted Hughes, 1979, and one of Isaiah Berlin, 1971) are in the collections of the National Portrait Gallery in London.

Chanan lives in North Devon.

See the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography for information about Sir Isaiah Berlin (1909–1997), Sir Stuart Hampshire (1914-2004), Sir Freddie Ayer (1910–1989), Dame Iris Murdoch (1919-1999), Gilbert Ryle (1900-1976) and Sir Peter Strawson (1919-2006).