Beatles, Friends & Family: Photos by Linda McCartney

In 1967, a young Lin­da East­man went to Lon­don to pho­to­graph the “Swing­ing Six­ties” and snagged exclu­sive pho­tos of The Rolling Stones, Eric Clap­ton and Jimi Hen­drix. In the midst of it all, she met Paul McCart­ney, and when the two mar­ried in 1969, she had a fixed place with­in rock ‘n rol­l’s inner cir­cle.

Dur­ing the com­ing decades, she took over 200,000 images. Yes, that means many more pho­tographs of rock stars and artists. But the empha­sis also shift­ed inward, to a new domes­tic life with Paul and their chil­dren — Heather, Mary, Stel­la, and James. Years lat­er, as Paul pre­pares to mar­ry again, the pho­to­graph­ic work of Lin­da McCart­ney (1941–1998) has been pub­lished in a 288-page ret­ro­spec­tive vol­ume called Lin­da McCart­ney: Life in Pho­tographs. It fea­tures a for­ward by Paul and some com­men­tary by Annie Lei­bovitz. An impres­sive sam­pling of Lin­da McCart­ney’s work can be pre­viewed on this web site.