Paul McCartney in Conversation

Fabulous online conversation from the National Portrait Gallery to complement their current exhibition of photographs from 1963-4 by Paul McCartney.

The event was live streamed from the gallery with tickets for the auditorium given to photography students and brought together Paul McCartney and Stanley Tucci. Tucci had to do very little but just ask a few questions to prompt McCartney and draw a few of the answers out. From the outset it was a lively event with the opener of “You are 21 and about to be famous. Why take photos?”.

I’ve been to see the show since and will blog it soon but the talk was a great introduction and made you think more about the experiences the pictures were recording rather than just looking as art works.

They talked about how the photographs were discovered by his photo archivist and were offered to the gallery as a possible exhibition during lockdown. McCartney remembered taking them but thought they had been lost. He also talked about how they selected the images to use from negatives and contact sheets which led to some chat about how photography had change.

In amongst the technical talk there were also great anecdotes of those early years of the group. It was particularly moving to hear him talk about how one picture of John Lennon in the back of a car had reminded him of a small unconscious movement he often made when he was relaxed.

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