The society photographer, the fifth Earl of Lichfield, who has died aged 66 after suffering a stroke, was the first to admit his good fortune in life. Recalling his time as one of the seminal figures of London in the "swinging 60s", he mused: "Memories like that make me realise what a privileged life I have had, despite the emotional ups and downs."
The downs included a personally devastating divorce in the mid-1980s and life-threatening injuries sustained in an accident at his holiday home on the Caribbean island of Mustique in 1991. But there were many more ups for the aristocratic relative of the Queen, who carved out a successful commercial career at least partly on the strength of his name and connections.
Not for Lichfield the gritty documentary realism and stark originality in the portfolio of his fellow royal photographer, Lord Snowdon. Lichfield's milieu was the studio portrait of good-looking women for glossy magazines, advertisements and calendars, as well as regular royal and celebrity commissions. As he once engagingly confided about his latest project: "My greatest thrill is that I am now shooting pictures for the British Tourist Board; at last something I am proud to identify with," though he did add wistfully: "I'd like to be taken seriously before it's too late."
Thomas Patrick John Anson, the son of Viscount Anson and Princess Anne of Denmark - whose position as the niece of the Queen Mother made her son a first cousin once removed of the Queen - inherited his title from his paternal grandfather. The family were from the Midlands aristocracy. One ancestor was Admiral Anson who circumnavigated the globe in the early 18th century.
Lichfield grew up at the family home, Shugborough Hall, Staffordshire, remaining there after his parents' divorce. He maintained a 35-room apartment at Shugborough to the end of his life, long after the house had been taken over by the National Trust.
He was given his first camera at the age of six as a present when he was packed off to prep school. Typically, he was punished after taking an informal picture of his relative, the future queen, at a cricket match.
Educated at Harrow and Sandhurst, he subsequently served as a regular officer in the Grenadier Guards before leaving to become a photographer's trainee in 1962, much to the consternation of his parents who viewed the move as akin to going into trade. They promptly suspended his allowance. Charitably, he later told an interviewer: "My parents opposed me becoming a photographer, but I think that was because they thought if I felt strongly enough to go against their wishes, I might have a chance of succeeding at what I did."
Early in his career, Lichfield disguised his background but later was not averse to using his connections. "I used to think the lot of photographers like Bailey, Donovan and Duffy was easier than mine," he told the Daily Telegraph in 1996. "The heterosexual, cockney working-class lad was the image of the time, whereas the privileged toff as personified by Beaton had had its day. But the 1960s were good for the upper classes because the barriers were broken down for us as well and we all came into contact with people we wouldn't normally have met. My son won't meet any parental opposition on grounds of what he wants to do."
Starting as a photographer's assistant, bedding down in a studio and then later sharing a condemned flat in central London, Lichfield made a name for himself photographing - and often squiring "too many to remember" - the new wave of young models, actors and debutantes who were beginning to appear in the press and glossy magazines.
His royal connections helped too, with commissions to photograph members of the family firm, most notably the formal portraits for the Prince of Wales's marriage to Lady Diana Spencer in 1981, when Lichfield marshalled the guests at Buckingham Palace using a whistle, and elicited relaxed and smiling pictures as a result. Earlier, he had also achieved a striking portrait for Vogue of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor in 1966. "I was rescued by the fact that I fell through one of their chairs as I took the picture. As luck would have it, as I went down I managed to get one shot."
No technophobe, he later enthusiastically espoused digital photography. His technical proficiency and industriousness, if not innovation or originality, earned him recognition in the trade. He was made a fellow of the British Institute of Professional Photographers and a member of the Royal Photographic Society.
At his holiday home on Mustique, fellow sojourners included Princess Margaret, the Jaggers, David Bowie and Raquel Welch. It was there that he sustained serious injuries in 1991 after falling 18ft over a wall while helping a fellow guest to remove their boots.
Lichfield married Lady Leonora Grosvenor in 1975 but the marriage ended as a result of his adultery a decade later, an event which had a long-lasting emotional effect. He told an interviewer last year: "To marry a photographer who charges around the world with the most beautiful girls is not a reliable prospect. Until my marriage break-up I'd never had any form of emotional upset. I might have broken a few hearts but my own was pretty much intact. That shows how spoiled I was."
He subsequently lived with a new partner, Lady Annunziata Asquith, a descendant of the Edwardian prime minister. She survives him, along with
· Thomas Patrick John Anson, fifth Earl of Lichfield, born 25 April 25 1939; died November 11 2005