Breaking the mould

Dennis Morris is most famous for his images of music superstars and documentary work in London. He spoke to Steve Fairclough about his major new retrospective exhibition and book

- Steve Fairclough

It was perhaps destiny that a young, gifted and black photographer from Jamaica would spring to fame with his iconic images of reggae legend Bob Marley. Dennis Morris was born on the Caribbean island in 1960, but his family moved to the cooler climes of England when he was just a young boy. His love of photography was sparked at an early age when the English darkroom entrepreneur Donald Paterson set up a photographic club for choirboys at Morris's local church in Hackney.

Morris recalls, 'At the age of nine, I first saw the magic of photography. One of the older boys was printing in the darkroom. He took the paper, put it into a dish, rocked the dish and this image appeared. I thought "Wow! Magic." From that moment on I knew this was going to be my life. I guess Mr Paterson saw my enthusiasm and potential, and took me under his wing. He taught me everything. He took me to galleries, museums... you name it. It all stemmed from him.'

The youthful Morris's prodigious talent for photography was quickly apparent. He won a photo contest with a seaside image shot with a Kodak Brownie camera on a school trip in Devon and, aged 11, had one of his pictures (of a PLO demo in London he'd stumbled across) on the front page of the Daily Mirror.

He studied photography in magazines and books and reveals, 'The biggest discovery for me was Gordon Parks, the first black photographer to work at