Robert Freeman (photographer)

Robert Freeman (photographer)

Robert Freeman is a photographer and designer, most famous for his album cover photos for The Beatles and his design work on the end credit sequences of their first two films and the related film posters and advertising materials.

He was the Beatles' most favoured photographer during the years 1963 to 1966 and shot arguably the most iconic images of them. He photographed and designed the covers for five consecutive album covers of the Beatles-sanctioned UK album releases on the Parlophone label. Most of those images were also adapted by Capitol Records for the US releases they compiled from the Beatles' UK recordings.

Freeman first came to prominence as a photo journalist working for the British newspaper The Sunday Times - for which he photographed a variety of subjects including Nikita Khrushchev in the Kremlin. He had also become noted for his black-and-white photographs of several jazz musicians including John Coltrane. It was these photographs that impressed the Beatles' manager Brian Epstein and the Beatles themselves and led to his first commission in August 1963 to photograph the group. He was selected to photograph the entirety of the first-ever Pirelli Calendar - shot in 1963 for the year 1964.