John Haynes started taking photographs in 1963 after seeing Henri-Cartier Bresson's book The Europeans (Les Europeens) teaching himself photography with the aid of the American photographer Andreas Feininger's book Manual of Advanced Photography whose focus was on the thought behind the taking of a picture, rather than on technical aspect. After working for two years with the Sunday Times he decide to specialize in Theatre Photography. he was the in-house photographer for The Royal Court Theatre, Hampstead Theatre and Michel Codron Ltd, from 1970 too 1994. He has photographed over 200 productions for the The National Theatre under the artistic direction of Laurence Olivier, peter Hall, Richard Eyre and Trevor Nunn.