ROBERT FREEMAN raj prem collection

Robert Freeman is a celebrated photographer famous for his album cover photos for the The Beatles .
He was The Beatles' official photographer from 1963 to 1966. Freeman came to prominence for working on the first Pirelli Calendar and for photographing Khrushchev in the Kremlin. His black-and-white photos of the jazz-legend John Coltrane that brought him to the Beatles' attention. Robert Freeman graduated from Cambridge in 1959. "...In the summer of '63. I'd been a photographer for two years but had already established a reputation through my work for the Sunday Times and other magazines. I'd recently been on assignment in Moscow to photograph Khrushchev in the Kremlin, and earlier that year had shot the first Pirelli calendar. This was a big hit and, in later years, a media event. But my favourite assignment during that period was photographing John Coltrane and other jazz musicians at a festival in London. It was photographs of these musicians that I later showed to the Beatles...I contacted their press agent in London. He referred me to Brian Epstein, their manager, who asked me to send samples of my work to Llandudno, in Wales, where the Beatles were playing at the time. I put together a portfolio of large black-and-white prints, most of which were portraits of jazz musicians - Cannonball Adderley, Dizzy Gillespie, Elvin Jones, Coleman Hawkins and John Coltrane. The Beatles' response was positive - they liked the photographs and, as a result, Brian arranged for me to meet them in Bournemouth a week later where they were booked to play several evenings at the local Gaumont cinema."