"Being fatally drawn to the human race, what I want to do when I photograph it is to make a revelation about it. So my sitters turn into my victims. But I would like to add that it is only those with a daemon, whose faces lend themselves to be victimised at all."

John Deakin, in unpublished manuscript

"I am sure he will be seen as one of the most disturbing photographers of the century. The expressions of his victims look suitably appalled for Deakin had no time for such niceties as "cheese" and the effect was magnfied by huge contrasty blow-ups with every pore, blemish, and blood-shot eyeball exposed. In this way, he combined the instant horror of a passport photo with a shock value all his own."

Daniel Farson

"The best (portrait photographer) since Nadar and Julia Margaret Cameron."

Francis Bacon

"The only person to have been hired and fired twice by the same editor at Vogue."

Vogue historian and writer Robin Muir

"Like Cinderella and the Ugly Sisters at the same time."

Lucian Freud

"The second nastiest man I ever met."

Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton