David Hamilton (15 April 1933 – 25 November 2016) was a British photographer and film director best known for his photography of young women and girls, mostly nude.

Hamilton soon realised his love for Paris, however, and after returning there, he became the art director of Printemps, the city's largest department store.

[3] While Hamilton was still employed at Printemps, he began doing commercial photography, and the dreamy, grainy style of his images quickly brought him success.

His further successes included dozens of photographic books with combined sales well into the millions; five feature films; countless magazine displays and museum and gallery exhibitions.

His work was exhibited in every one of the first three years of The Photographers' Gallery, London, but was roundly condemned by photojournalist Euan Duff for its "cliched pictorial symbolism, exploiting soft focus, pastel colours, country landscapes and old houses, old fashioned clothes and even white doves to give a phoney impression of heaIthy-food ad naturalness; they are a sort of wholemeal stoneground pornography," exhibited "because the gallery needs the money.

"[5] In December 1977, Images Gallery — a studio owned by Bob Persky[6] at 11 East 57th Street in Manhattan — showed his photographs at the same time that Bilitis[7] was released.

In his book, Contemporary Photographers, curator Christian Caujolle wrote that Hamilton worked only with two fixed devices: "a clear pictorial intention and a latent eroticism, ostensibly romantic, but asking for trouble".

[4] Besides depicting young women and girls, Hamilton composed photographs of flowers, men, landscapes, farm animals, pigeons, and still lifes of fresh fruit.

In response, Glenn Holland, Hamilton's spokesman, said: "We are deeply saddened and disappointed by this, as David is one of the most successful art photographers the world has ever known.

[13] In 2010, a man was convicted of level 1 child pornography for owning four books, including Hamilton's The Age of Innocence as well as Still Time by Sally Mann, which he purchased from a bookstore in Walthamstow, London.

The judge concluded that "If the [CPS] wishes to test whether the pictures in the books are indecent, the right way to deal with the matter is by way of prosecuting the publisher or retailer – not the individual purchaser.

He also states that at the time Flavie complained of inappropriate behaviour by the photographer resulting in her parents stopping Hamilton from continuing with her.

[3][29] On 17 November 2016, the weekly news magazine L'Obs published anonymous accounts by three other former models who claimed to have been raped by Hamilton.

On the evening of 25 November 2016, Hamilton's cleaning lady entered the apartment of the 83-year-old photographer at 41 Boulevard Montparnasse[33] in southern Paris and found him dead with a plastic bag over his head and medications close at hand.