Swapan Nayak started working professionally as photographer from1995, doing freelance photography in The Statesman, English daily news in Kolkata. After one and half year, he was appointed in The Asian Age (Kolkata) for daily news photography. Exhausting pressure of daily news photojournalism was an obligatory factor for his passion of in-depth photojournalism. So he left the job and joined Outlook, a national English news magazine after a year. Till today he is continuing his job in Outlook Group of Publications. His photographs had been published in world`s leading magazines like Time, News Week, Asia Week and Southern Exposure. He won national media fellowship` 2002-2003, rewarded by National Foundation for India. He was one of the Indian participants in Chobi Mela III and Chobi Mela IV, an international biennial photographic exhibition in 2004 and 2006 respectively, organized by Drik Photo Agency in Bangladesh. His is also a participant at the group exhibition commemorating the India - Japan Friendship Year 2007, in Tokyo, Japan.

Apart from regular assignments, he keeps continuing several socio- economic issue based photo documentations.