Robert Freeman (5 December 1936 – 6 or 7 November 2019)[1][2][3] was an English photographer and graphic designer best known for his work with the Beatles, shooting some of the band's most recognizable images featured on several of their album covers.

[1][4] While at Cambridge, Freeman pursued his interest in photography, edited the university magazine, and attended lectures given by the famed historian of English architecture, Nikolaus Pevsner.

[1] 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 directed the Swinging London cult film The Touchables in 1968, which starred Judy Huxtable and David Anthony, and featured music by the British band Nirvana.

I'd recently been on assignment in Moscow to photograph Khrushchev in the Kremlin, and earlier that year had shot the first Pirelli calendar.

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.

[7] Freeman recalled: They had to fit in the square format of the cover, so rather than have them all in a line, I put Ringo in the bottom right corner, since he was the last to join the group.

The corridor was very dark, and there was a window at the end, and by using this heavy source of natural light coming from the right, he got that very moody picture which most people think he must have worked at forever and ever.

Freeman showed the photos to the Beatles by projecting them onto an album-sized piece of cardboard to simulate how they would appear on an album cover.

The unusual Rubber Soul album cover came to be when the slide card fell slightly backwards, elongating the projected image of the photograph and stretching it.

According to her claim, sometime after the couple moved to their estate in Kenwood, they were confronted by a furious Bob Freeman accompanied by his wife who appeared in tears behind him.

In September 2009, whilst on holiday and staying with his sister in Reigate, Robert Freeman suffered a severe stroke and was admitted to hospital in Redhill.

His family sold a copy of one of his John Lennon portraits online as a way to pay for his care and help him financially to work on preserving his archive while he was recuperating.

[2] During the weekend of 14–15 December 2019, more than a month after the photographer's death, someone broke into his apartment in southwest London, where he had spent his last years.