Vale Robert Whitaker

It is with sadness that we note the recent passing of great Australian celebrity photographer Robert Whitaker. Although born in England, Whitaker spent his teenage years and early twenties in Melbourne, where he became friends of the iconic Mora family.

In 1963 Whitaker took this striking double portrait of Mirka and Georges Mora -- an image that in turn inspired Nat Thomas and Concetina Inserra's 2008 Bowness Photography Prize-winning picture "Portrait of mother and daughter". Whitaker went on to become court photographer to Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones, and was in many ways responsible for the cool image of the Stones, the Beatles and many of the 1960s' other cultural icons.