Stafford took portraits throughout her working life, spanning a wide range of international household names across science, art, politics, fashion, film and literature including Albert Einstein, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Sir Richard Attenborough, Indira Gandhi, Joanna Lumley, Le Corbusier, Edith Piaf, Sir Alan Bates among others and including lesser known figures – but equally deserving of a place in history – including Francesca Serio, an illiterate Sicilian peasant woman who brought the mafia to trial for murdering her son or the Algerian Mother who fled to Tunisia during Algeria’s War of Independence in 1958.
“Portraits are visible to us everywhere we go. Some of mine were taken as newspaper or magazine assignments, some are street scenes captured in a passing moment, others were taken for projects never completed – all of them are dear old friends.”