Baby's In Black

Astrid Kirchherr was born May 20th, 1938 in Hamburg Germany. In collage she had planed to study fashion design, but instead switched courses to photography. She began working as Reinhard Wolf's assistant from 1959 to 1963. Astrid and her art school friends were part of the existentialist movement. She told BBC Radio Merseyside. "Our philosophy then, because we were only little kids, was wearing black clothes and going around looking moody. Of course we had a clue who Jean Paul Sarte was. We got inspired by all the french artists and writers, because that was the closest we could get. England was so far and America was out of the question. So france was the nearest. So we got all of our information from France, and we tried to dress like the french existentialists. We wanted to be free, we wanted to be different, and tried to be cool, as we call it now." Astrid and her group of friends went to see the Beatles perform in 1960 at the Kaiserkeller club. This was the first time she had seen the Beatles. "It was like a merry-go-round in my head, they looked absolutely astonishing. My whole life changed in a couple of minutes. All I wanted was to be with them and to know them." Stuart Sutcliffe was the first to meet Astrid and was fascinated by her. They began dating and were engaged until Stuarts death. Astrid's most earliest photos of the Beatles were taken at a fairground in Hamburg in 1960. "In those early days they looked quite rough, having their hair combed back with grease, they really looked like rock 'n 'rollers." Astrid also took photos of the Beatles on the set of A Hard Day's Night.

photos-Astrid Kirchherr, fanpix, flickr