1964: Eyes of the Storm

[samstevens]

Photo book by Paul McCartney

https://www.npr.org/2023/06/13/1181868235/paul-mccartney-photos-beatles-1964-eyes-of-the-storm-book

[Rick Helmke]

This looks interesting. My interest are going more and more back to b&w film, a darkroom and street photography. I’m reminded specifically here of a book by Linda McCartney called ‘The Sixties’. It is excellent work and I suspect this is similar. I wonder if it’s available somewhere close by.
 

Rick H

[samstevens]

1 hour ago, Rick Helmke said:

I wonder if it’s available somewhere close by.

https://www.amazon.com/1964-Eyes-Storm-Paul-McCartney/dp/1324093064

https://www.paulmccartney.com/eyesofthestorm

[Ricochetrider]

Just ordered a copy- figure this first edition will go quickly? Just a guess. Anyway, I’m intrigued by Paul the photographer as much as I am by his capturing the spectacle of The Beatles’ tour of Liverpool, London, Paris, NYC, Washington DC, & Miami in 1963/64. Admittedly there’s a strong time-stamp on these shots- but what a time it was. I’m in, and will add this to my growing collection of photography books. 
 

Thanks for posting, Sam. 

[fototom]

Paul McCartney took some snapshots and he gets a book and an exhibit. Right. But hold on . . . these are more than snapshots. These photographs from, despite the title, 1963 and 1964 are . . . pretty good! This is looking out when we (well, those of us of a certain age) were looking in: well-chronicled events – the Beatles arriving in New York, the crazy crowds, Ringo and his drums precariously perched for the Ed Sullivan Show; but also what we didn’t see – John in his pre-John Lennon glasses, the views from within the cars and trains and planes, the tedium of the hotel rooms. It’s a fun look at the fashions and hairstyles of the time. (Their hair was considered long? Really?). Everybody smoked. They were so young – early twenties, but they looked like teenagers.

There are numerous references to Paul’s Pentax, but not the specific model. It must have been an unmetered pre-Spotmatic. Also, no mention of the lens, but 50mm was pretty much standard back then. He would ask the professional photographers for advice on settings – they were apparently helpful because the proof sheets all look properly exposed. He shot Kodak Tri-X with its distinctive grain and Ilford HPS Hypersensitive Panchromatic (never heard of that one before). In Miami he broke out the Kodachrome.

Could Paul McCartney have been a visual artist instead of a musical artist? These photos show that he had an eye for composition and light. There are frame-in-frame and rule-of-thirds shots, some striking spotlight performance images, and pre-Vivian Maier mirror pictures. Yes, I think he could have, probably as a street photographer, but I also think he made the right choice.

Particularly intriguing are the photographs of the photographers, who are pretty evenly split between shooting Rolleis and Nikons, with the occasional Leica. (One fan held a Polaroid camera with the print coming out the bottom. No phones.)

The strength of these photos is their cumulative narrative – excitement, sometimes chaos, and everything new new new. That said, a few individual images stand out: George poolside with a ciggie, a drink, and a girl; New York buildings and billboards with vertical verticals achieved without camera movements; and the one that Paul said deeply disturbed him, the extremely sharp and ungrainy (must have been the Ilford film) police officer’s gun and ammo, something he had never seen in England.

My rating: five f-stops (out of five).