In 1964: Eyes of the Storm, Paul McCartney--long the subject of photographers--gets on the other side of the camera, capturing the Beatles as only an insider could--and with a warmth, gentle humor, and guilelessness that perhaps only Beatle Paul could.
The 270-plus photos collected here were rediscovered in 2020 and span December 1963 through February 1964, during which McCartney shot the Beatles, their amiable entourage, and others in six cities: Liverpool, London, Paris, and--marking the band's first transatlantic junket--New York, Washington, D.C., and Miami. Ringo Starr is attended in a makeup chair before a gig. John Lennon gazes into the eyes of a clay likeness of his head. McCartney, too, is represented here, either snapped by Beatles insiders or appearing in self-portraits that show one of the world's most photographed people in a fresh light: as he saw himself.
1964 finds the band in the throes of Beatlemania; as McCartney puts it in one of his chirpy section intros, the photos "show me trying to encapsulate the madness that ensued in late 1963 through early 1964" when the Beatles erupted on The Ed Sullivan Show. McCartney switches to color film in the book's jubilant final section to capture the conquering Beatles enjoying a rare morsel of downtime in Miami. In an image for the ages, George Harrison wears shades at poolside next to a yellow-bikini-clad woman, the giveaway that he's more of a boy than a playboy, the dusting of pimples on his cheek. --Nell Beram, author and freelance writer