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John Swannell - part 2 of 1 2 3

Published 01/02/2010

Two years later he worked as a storeroom assistant at the famous Vogue Studios. It was a turning point in his life. There he could witness the day-to -day photo-traffic of some of the world's greatest photographers. Newton, Avedon, Bailey and Norman Parkinson were all frequent visitors. 'I got lucky one day when one of the assistants was ill,' he says. 'I covered for him and then in the late sixties I got the job of my dreams - assisting David Bailey.'

But he thought he'd blown his entire future on his very first day with the great man.

'I'd invested a week's wages on a gadget that fitted on top of the tripod and enabled cameras to be switched in three seconds' he notes. 'I thought this would impress Bailey. But something went very badly wrong and I ended up wrecking his £200 Rolleiflex. I just stared incredulously at the broken camera on the floor and thought that was it. My career had ended on my very first day as a full-time assistant. But when Bailey next came back to the studios I was told by Vogue that he had demanded to be assisted...'by that dick-head who smashed my camera.' Swannell assisted DB for four years. 'He is a great photographer. I learnt more from him in the first two months than I had in the previous four years,' he says. 'We travelled the world together on shoots and we became great friends.' And they still are today.

Just like David Bailey (with Jean Shrimpton) and Irving Penn (with 1930s supermodel Lisa Fonssagrives) John Swannell became entranced by - and then married - one of his model sitters, Marianne Lah - a stunning model first discovered by Andy Warhol back in 1977. 'I saw her face on the cover of a magazine and I thought it was the most beautiful face I had ever seen. I couldn't stop looking at her,' he confesses. And after that he couldn't stop booking her for shoots either - to the growing annoyance of the model agency.

Bailey tried to keep the hugely talented Swannell by his side. He even offered to buy him a flat in Primrose Hill and quadruple his salary. But the time had come for John Swannell to be his own man. Bailey reluctantly accepted his decision and presented him with a year's salary and a camera case full of Pentax cameras as a leaving present.

'When I left him I knew I had to create my own style of shooting,' he says. 'I think my photographs of women shots are probably more romantic and gentler than those of Bailey or say Helmut Newton.'

Over the years Swannell has taken portraits of many of the world's celebrities, actors, various heads of state and other luminaries but regrets missing out on the Dalai Lama and Nelson Mandela. Inspired by Henry Moore and Rodin he just loves photographing women- both fashion and nudes. He admits: 'I love women and the female body. There is nothing more beautiful.'

Much of his work is in monochrome. 'I've always loved black and white,' he says. 'I used to develop my pictures in my parents' bathroom and I still remember the sheer joy of watching those images come to life.'

When it comes to lighting he prefers to keep it pretty simple. 'Avedon was a genius but he tended to use just one light on a boom with a grey background.'

These days Swannell shoots digitally with a Canon 5D. But Leica has been courting him with their new 37.5 MP S2 DSLR camera (£16,000 for the body only). 'If they come up with a decent proposition I will switch to Leica because this is a superb piece of kit,' he says.

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