Life through a lens - Celebrated photographer John Minihan on some of his most famous photos

Celebrated photographer John Minihan tells Des O’Driscoll about some of his most famous pictures

THERE is nobody in Ireland who has photographed — or possibly even met — such an array of famous figures as John Minihan. A teenage Diana Spencer, a wizened Samuel Beckett, an edgy young band named The Who, and countless others have ended up in iconic photographs as a result of posing for Minihan’s trusty Rolleiflex camera.

As a photographer with the Daily Mail and Evening Standard in London, Minihan had access to many of the world’s news-makers. And, through friendships he forged, often in the drinking dens of Soho or via his own interest in the arts, he regularly managed to breach the divide between news snapper and subject.