Olivia Harrison, the wife of the late George Harrison of Beatles fame, has compiled a book showcasing some of the guitarist’s never-before-shown photographic work. Olivia reflects on what the photos capture on Monocle Radio.
Olivia Harrison, the wife of the late, great George Harrison, has curated a treasure trove of her husband’s extensive photography archive and published it under the title, The Third Eye: Early Photographs. Considering that the photographs were taken by one of the 20th century’s most famous men and that many of the pictures feature three of the others in that rarefied category – John Lennon, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr – the book is fresh, enlightening and surprising. George clearly had a great eye, an innate sense of framing and an easy rapport with his subjects, whether they were Beatles, a beatific Indian sage or more, well, run of the mill (to coin a song title).
Was it easier for a supposedly quiet artist to return the world’s glare and gaze when his eye was behind a camera? Do his photographs reflect his personality or simply a moment – or both? Do they capture what it was like to be one of only four people in the world who could never see the Beatles from an Was it easier for a supposedly quiet artist to return the world’s glare and gaze when his eye was behind a camera? Do his photographs reflect his personality or simply a moment – or both? Do they capture what it was like to be one of only four people in the world who could never see the Beatles from an audience’s perspective? In an interview for Monocle on Culture, Olivia Harrison discusses the book. Below is a selection of images featured in the publication, along with quotes from the conversation.
Listen to the full conversation on Monocle Radio’s Monocle on Culture.
“I like cameras because you can see things in a different way, and you can make things look how they feel instead of how they are.”
(Image: G.H. Estate Ltd)
One of the first images that we see in the book is a self-portrait of a young George Harrison staring straight down the barrel of the camera [accompanied by] a quote: ‘I like cameras because you can see things in a different way and you can make things look how they feel instead of how they are.’ What does that mean to you now, Olivia?
Well, George was a very deep-feeling person and knew that everyone had a choice, so when he decided to push the shutter button – that particular moment – is what makes a photograph unique. Now I’m looking through the photographs in the book, I really feel like I’m standing right behind him. I’m looking through his eyes. I really feel like I’m in that room.
George has got such a good eye. Does it seem like the same person was taking photographs at the end – and at the end of the book when George was older – as [the one] taking the photographs at the beginning? The same eye, same preoccupations?
George was always looking for something – in a day, in a moment – beyond what was there. I think that’s what got him into the crazy fisheye lens with the red filter. [Today] you can do anything with a camera but then he was like, “I’ve got this red filter because I want to change things. I want to make them, I want to enhance the moment.” It’s symbolic of his own inner journey and finally getting to the edge of the material world.
In the book, there’s a wonderful photograph of Paul McCartney on the floor of an empty room and it looks like a posed art shot. It’s great but it doesn’t look like anything else in the book, which is full of very joyful, unposed and intimate moments.
When those four [George Harrison, Paul McCartney, John Lennon and Ringo Starr] were sequestered in a room, there was so much trust there. Nobody’s posing – they’re in the same car, they’re in the same room, they’re in the same airplane. All different photographs. Again, whenever you choose to hit that shutter, that’s you. There’s no guard up. They’re completely relaxed and that’s something you don’t see in any other photograph of them taken by an outsider. They were the insiders.
Well, when you have been sharing fried breakfasts in scuzzy hotels in Hamburg and sleeping in the same bedroom, you’ve got nowhere to hide, right?
I know and it’s that exactly. What I always see when they’re looking at each other is that you almost see everything back. What I see on Paul’s face or John’s face, is ‘Oh, it’s you.’”
There are plenty of shots from the band’s trips to India and there’s a lot of light in those photographs. Obviously that’s [because of] the weather but it’s also as if George is letting the light in, isn’t it?
One of the things that the book is trying to express is that we can’t take pictures in darkness. We can’t live in darkness, so we each have to choose to let the light in – not only into the camera but into our own lives. What are these images about at all? They are about light, that’s all it is. And how much you choose to let in through the shutter.
Listen to the full conversation on Monocle Radio’s ‘Monocle on Culture’.
