Astrid Kirchherr - Freelance Photographer

Freelance Photographer

In 1964, Kirchherr became a freelance photographer, and with her colleague Max Scheler she took "behind the scenes" photographs of The Beatles during the filming of "A Hard Day's Night", as an assignment for the German Stern magazine. Epstein had forbidden any publicity photographs to be taken without his permission, but Kirchherr phoned Harrison, who said he would arrange it, but added, "Only if they pay you."

Stern phoned Bill Harry at his Mersey Beat newspaper and asked if he could arrange a photograph of all the groups in Liverpool, so Harry suggested Kirchherr be the photographer, although Kirchherr later said she placed an advertisement in the Liverpool Echo newspaper. Kirchherr and Scheler said that any group who wanted their photograph taken in front of St. George's Hall would be paid £1 per musician, but over 200 groups turned up on the day, which meant Kirchherr and Scheler soon ran out of money. Kirchherr didn't publish the photographs until 1995, in a book called Liverpool Days, which is a limited edition collection of black-and-white photographs. In 1999, a companion book called Hamburg Days was published (a two-volume limited edition), containing a set of photographs by Kirchherr and "memory drawings" by Voormann. The drawings are recollections of places and situations that Voormann clearly remembers, but Kirchherr had never photographed, or had lost the photographs.

Kirchherr described how difficult it was to be accepted as a female photographer in the 1960s: "Every magazine and newspaper wanted me to photograph The Beatles again. Or they wanted my old stuff, even if it was out of focus, whether they were nice or not. They wouldn't look at my other work. It was very hard for a girl photographer in the 60s to be accepted. In the end I gave up. I've hardly taken a photo since 1967." Kirchherr was quoted as saying that When We Was Fab (Genesis Publications 2007), would be her last book of photographs: "I have decided it is time to create one book in which I am totally involved so that it contains the pictures I like most, printed the way I would print them, even down to the text and design.... This book is me and that is why it will be the last one. The very last one."

Kirchherr has expressed respect for other photographers, such as Annie Leibovitz (because of the humour in her work), Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, Jim Rakete and Reinhard Wolf (German Wikipedia), and French film-makers François Truffaut, and Jean Cocteau. Kirchherr said that her favourite photos are the ones she took of Sutcliffe by the Baltic sea, and of Lennon and Harrison in her attic room at 45a Eimsbütteler Strasse. She has expressed reservations about digital photography, saying that a photographer should concentrate on the art of photography and not on the technical results, although admitting that she knows nothing about computers and is "afraid of the internet".

Kirchherr admits that she is not good at business as she is not organised enough, and has never really looked after the negatives of her photographs to prove ownership. Her business partner Ulf Krüger—a songwriter and record producer—successfully found many of Astrid's negatives and photographs and had them copyrighted, although he believes that Kirchherr has lost £500,000 over the years because of people using her photographs without permission. In July 2001 Kirchherr visited Liverpool to open an exhibition of her work at the Mathew Street art gallery, which is close to the former site of The Cavern Club. She appeared as a guest at the city's Beatles Week Festival during the August Bank Holiday. Kirchherr's work has been exhibited internationally in places, such as Hamburg, Bremen, London, Liverpool, New York City, Washington D.C., Tokyo, Vienna, and at the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame.