So many books of photos are released on the Beatles and so many of them are overhyped for their content.
But you can't say that about Don McCullin's wonderful "A Day in the Life of the Beatles" by Rizzoli. Many of the photos, from the series of "Mad Day Out" photo sessions, have truly never been seen.
And they are stunning. McCullin, who has done a lot of war photography, says in the introduction he got a phone call from Apple to photograph the Beatles for £200 and he could keep the copyright. After a day of shooting in studio on July 28, 1968, he shot 15 rolls of film the next day that have become one of several sessions known as "Mad Day Out." Some of McCullin's photos have appeared previously, but many have not.
The Beatles appear loose, for the most part, and actually clown around a little. The book features an introduction by McCullin and a foreward by Paul McCartney, who recalls the session. "For us, this was a great day out. At this point, in 1968, we were looking for something different," he says. "We thought we've got to be the war. We'll provide the battlefield and it'll work. He'll just click into action. That's exactly what happened."
Indeed it did, as the book proves.
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Comments
Weren't these photos published previously? I bought a book from Tracks in the UK a few years back, and they sound like the same photos.
I don't know about the Tracks book, but there are several sessions under the title "Mad Day Out." There's another book coming by Stephen Goldblatt (see here: http://www.examiner.com/beatles-in-national/deluxe-new-book-features-uns...).
I find the "Mad Day Out" photos to be so poignant - the boys are clearly trying to recapture that "Hard Day's Night" exuberance of just 4 years earlier, but you can see in their faces that their hearts aren't quite in it anymore.
I disagree. I bought this book and they are clearly enjoying themselves in many of the photos, and more serious in others. Whatever troubles they were having, they had fun on this day. And you can tell from the images.
Good publication but it's a bit annoying to find a set of contact sheets at the back of the book which feature photos NOT available full size in the book despite the fact that several of the book's pages are completely blank!
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