Rip it up! Book

As someone who loves photography and is a hopeful amateur photographer, I really enjoyed this book of photographs. In many ways, McCartney was not a particularly great photographer. She did manage to shoot some terrific photos using natural light and what appears to be minimal processing. I think that is what make them so very interesting. I included a copy of this famous Janice Joplin shot because I am a huge fan of Joplin's. Her version of "Me And Bobby McGee" almost inevitably brings me to tears. Before she married Paul McCartney she was Linda Eastman. She came from a well off family although she says she supported herself with her photography. She followed bands, did photography for Mademoiselle magazine among others. When she met Paul McCartney, however, most of that changed. She seems to have been the love of his life although he is remarried for the second time. It was interesting for me to see the pictures from a photographer's point of view, but also from a lover of the music of the era. In the chapter on Jimi Hendrix she says he took her best transparencies, and she never saw them again. I wonder what happened to them? Were they tossed by whomever was in charge of his estate? That would be tragic! It's an enjoyable book which can be read in a long sit down with a cup of coffee which is how I did it. She's gone now, but her photography will be there forever. The very end is rather poignant: ".....and I'm not keen to follow the line that everyone else is following. I'm into life." It's too bad that she lost her own life at such an young age. Who knows what she might have produced?