Places I Remember - Photos by Henry Grossman

Every now and then an item comes along that I lust after but good sense or just a lack of funds prevents me from taking the plunge. One such item is a recently released book of photographs taken by Henry Grossman. Entitled 'Places I Remember', it doesn't take a genius to work out that the subject matter of the book is The Beatles.

Back in February 1964, 27 year old Grossman was asked by Time magazine to cover the appearance of The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show. He was not at the time a Beatles fan, and to him, it was just another job. However he took a different approach to his task than most other photographers at the time. He chose to take his shots from unusual angles and places thus capturing not only the mop tops themselves, but also  successfully taking in the atmosphere surrounding the whole event. Shots were taken from the side of the stage, from behind the band towards the legion of other photographers and also from the very back of the theater (note the American spelling there folks) to give a sense of the scale of the place.

Thereafter, Grossman was regularly asked to photograph The Beatles on numerous occasions between 1964 and 1968. He became friendly with George Harrison and was often invited to attend events from which other photographers were excluded. In that period he took over 7,000 intimate photographs, though very few of them have been previously published.

The volume and quality of the photographs eventually came to the attention of Brian Kehew and his partner Kevin Ryan who were looking for photographs to illustrate their own book, 'Recording The Beatles'. They were given access to the collection of Mr Grossman and were staggered by how many photos he had accumulated.

Incidentally, those of you who have been following this blog since last March may recognise the names of Kehew and Ryan as having presented a lecture at Abbey Road Studios. I was lucky enough to attend and wrote about it at the time (http://eddie-graham.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/abbey-road-studios.html)

As Curvebender Publishing they have now released 'Places I Remember', a 528 page volume containing about 1,000 of Grossmans photographs. The silver-edged hardback book comes in a clamshell box and weighs a hefty fifteen pounds. This is limited to 1,250 copies, the first 250 of which are hand signed by Grossman himself.

As I said earlier, I lust after such an item but sadly the cost is beyond my modest means. If you are interested and have $495 (or $795 for one of the signed copies), you could get your hands on what sounds like a real treat. If so, I'd love to hear from you. It would make me very envious but what the hell!