Chances are you’ve never heard of John Deakin but you’ve seen paintings done using Deakin’s photos. I had never heard of him until I stumbled upon a retrospective of his work the other day. John Deakin got commissoned by painter extraordinaire Francis Bacon to do photographic studies that Bacon then used to paint. You can see (bad scans of) some of those photos here - including the utterly brilliant portrait that shows Bacon holding the halfs of a slaughtered pig (compare the painting). Deakin never took any care of either his photos or his equipment so many of the photos are literally taken from the floor of Bacon’s studio. What a shame! Anyway, this article discusses Bacon’s use of photography and here are a few more of Deakin’s photos.