The Guardian pubblica un estratto del nuovo libro di Paul McCartney, 1964: Eyes of the storm. Nel 2020 sono state ritrovate quasi mille fotografie scattate dal cantante dei Beatles con una fotocamera 35mm tra la fine del 1963 e l’inizio del 1964. In quei mesi nel Regno Unito prima e in tutto il pianeta poi, scoppiava la ” Beatlemania”, un fenomeno senza precedenti. Questo libro presenta le fotografie di quel periodo per molti versi sconvolgente, realizzate da chi si trovava “nell’occhio del ciclone”.
The pictures the singer took of his friends and bandmates give a Beatle’s-eye view of the mania around the band in 1964. Seen here for the first time, these extraordinary behind-the-scenes moments capture four young men on the brink of immortality.
Paul McCartney racconta l’emozione del ritrovamento:
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I always knew I had taken some pictures in the 1960s. At first, I couldn’t pinpoint the year, but I was certain we were quite young, just when the Beatles were really taking off. I never tried to find this collection – consciously, that is – but I kind of thought that it would just surface at the right time. There’s often a certain amount of serendipity involved. And while we were preparing for an exhibition of my late wife Linda’s photographs in 2020, I learned that my own had been preserved in my archives. When I first saw them after so many decades, I was delighted that these images and contact sheets had been finally located.
Il travolgente successo del fenomeno Beatles era qualcosa che tutti volevano “fotografare”: i fotografi professionisti, il pubblico che voleva vedere e lo stesso Paul McCartney, che lo viveva da protagonista.
Things were happening so wildly that I cannot say that photography was in the forefront of my mind as we toured. Even though we wanted to transform from a little band to a big one, and even though we hoped for international acceptance when we went to France and then the US, no one could have predicted what I describe as the “Eyes of the Storm”. At first, I was tempted to call it that, because the Beatles certainly were at the centre, or the eye, of a self-generated storm, but when I looked at all these photographs, I realised it really should be in the plural, the “Eyes of the Storm”, because of all the pictures that others were taking, the photographs I was taking and also the eyes of the fans that greeted us, the security that looked after us. Who is looking at who? The camera always seems to be shifting, with me photographing them, the press photographing us, and those thousands and thousands of people out there wanting to capture this storm.
Commenta qui sotto e segui le linee guida del sito.