AILSA CHANG, HOST:
George Harrison was famously nicknamed the quiet Beatle. To the press back then, in the 1960s, he appeared shyer, more reserved and perhaps withdrawn than his bandmates did. And for years, people close to Harrison pushed back on that image, pointing out how honest and direct he could be and how much he centered connection in his life with the world all around him. A new book illustrates exactly this. It's a book of photographs, many never published before, captured by the late Harrison's own camera. The book is called "The Third Eye."
The images show what life was like on the other side of Beatlemania, and they reveal a photographer with an unflinching eye, who invited himself into other people's spaces, insisting that they reveal themselves. His wife, Olivia Harrison, curated these pages and pages of photographs and joins us now in person at NPR West. Thank you so much for coming into our studio, Olivia.
OLIVIA HARRISON: Oh, thank you, Ailsa.
CHANG: So you wrote that the first time you met George, he was holding a photograph in his hand. Can you just describe what it looked like and maybe why you think it was meaningful to him?
HARRISON: That's right. I met him at Dark Horse Records back in 1974, but as he walked across - parked the car and walked across towards me, he held in his hand a photograph and some incense, and he handed it to me. And it just was a beautiful garden with a rainbow over it. And on the back, it just said, somewhere. I hadn't actually related to what you just said of, like, the first thing he handed me was a photograph.
CHANG: Yes.
HARRISON: I mean, you know, of course, that photograph turned up, like, 40 years later somewhere...
CHANG: Wow.
HARRISON: ...In the house. But, yes, it's funny that he handed me a photograph. His - and his favorite incense. So...
CHANG: (Laughter).
HARRISON: ...That said something. I should have known he was going to be behind a camera.
CHANG: What do you think somewhere meant to him?
HARRISON: Somewhere over the rainbow there.
CHANG: Yeah, yeah.
HARRISON: There was a little badge pinned at the end of the rainbow as the pot of gold.
CHANG: Well, you reminisce in this book about going out on walks with George when you would have a camera with him. What would those walks be like?
HARRISON: (Laughter) An amble. A stop-and-start amble. I say in my introduction that, you know, a long walk would require provisions.
CHANG: (Laughter) 'Cause he would take all these pictures all the time.
HARRISON: He would be stopping, depending on where we were. And, you know, he was looking - in his life and not just behind the camera - at the bigger picture. Always searching for something beyond what we could see or experience.
CHANG: Yeah, you said that he saw the world through the widest angle.
HARRISON: He did. And he also had this ability to find the tiniest macro, micro. You know, he had both views, this very wide view of life and also this ability to find the tiniest grain of sand on a beach. So you never really knew which world he was in, macro, micro.
CHANG: And yet, who do you think George was taking all of those photographs for? Because for people who obviously have not seen this book, George took many of these photographs at the height of Beatlemania. And obviously, it was this extraordinary time when any semblance of a normal life for these four men was disappearing. What do you think these photos that George took during that time reveal about what he was personally going through in those years?
HARRISON: I love these photos because it looks like a period in time where nothing bad had happened. You know, you go through life - you're young and you're invincible. And then not only that, but they're at the height of this crazy fame and joy. And you can really sense that they're not encumbered by tragedy and - you know, it just - when you're young, it's just, like, really fresh.
CHANG: Yeah.
HARRISON: Really fresh.
CHANG: I know exactly what you mean because there are so many photos that George took of John, of Paul, of Ringo doing, like, the most mundane personal things - sleeping, shaving, just goofing off. And what I was so struck by was exactly what you put your finger on. George captured these men in moments of rest. And yet, there was still such good humor present, even in private, even as exhausted as they must have been.
HARRISON: Yeah. When I look at them, I just - I see what's coming back at his lens. You know, you can see that they're so relaxed with one another. You can see the love. And they were in the center of this, you know, chaos and storm that they didn't mean to create, but they did.
CHANG: Yes. Did you get a sense of what he could still control about his life back then, even with all the chaos around him?
HARRISON: Look, when you're behind a camera or lens or a microphone like your - like, nobody's tapping you on the shoulder or asking you anything. Nobody's bugging you.
CHANG: Yep.
HARRISON: And I think that camera really becomes a barrier, a shelter. So I think, you know, he continued using a camera, whether it was walking around a garden or on a beach. I think it was an internalization.
CHANG: Yeah.
HARRISON: And also, what was he looking for? You know, when he discovered these primitive devices - like, a wide-angle lens was a big deal. Then he could put himself in the picture and get the whole scene, like these ones...
CHANG: Yeah.
HARRISON: ...In India at the Taj Mahal.
CHANG: Yes.
HARRISON: Right? Then he had a red filter. Wow, changing reality, distorting it. You know, to me, it's symbolic of what he was looking for - something else.
CHANG: What do you think that something else was?
HARRISON: Well, that something else, I think, was the inner experience and the inner journey that he went on, you know, for the rest of his life. So he's looking like, well, there's got to be more than this. I'm seeing what I'm seeing, but now I can distort it. Ah...
CHANG: Yeah.
HARRISON: ...That's something more.
CHANG: Was there a personal photo that George took after the two of you were married and had your son, during your time as a family together, a photograph that you especially cherish or captures the way he saw your family?
HARRISON: Oh, there's so many. So many photographs. I would wake up and he'd be taking a photograph.
CHANG: (Laughter) That's your alarm (laughter).
HARRISON: Literally. That was - that's a nice picture. I think there's one particular photograph where he set his camera up, and we're sitting on this - on the steps of this beautiful wooden dacha that he made in the garden.
CHANG: A hut, yeah.
HARRISON: I'd had this book on wooden Russian architecture for some reason. And so he built this dacha.
CHANG: (Laughter).
HARRISON: And we're sitting there, and it's in the autumn, you know, and the leaves are - have changed colors, and the three of us are there. Dhani's old enough to have hung out with him a lot, and they're very, very close. And it's just the three of us in the garden walking around like we always did. And that's a special photograph to me.
CHANG: I love that. What a beautiful moment. Olivia Harrison, curator of a book of photographs taken by her late husband, George Harrison. The book is called "The Third Eye." Thank you so much for visiting me here at NPR West, Olivia.
HARRISON: Thank you. Thank you, Ailsa.
(SOUNDBITE OF GEORGE HARRISON SONG, "I'D HAVE YOU ANYTIME") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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