National Portrait Gallery exhibits portraits by Paul McCartney

Could one of the most famous figures in music history have made it as a photographer?

For the first time, photographs taken by Paul McCartney are being exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in Covent Garden.

The show focuses on portraits captured by Mr McCartney, using his own camera.

The photos were all taken between December 1963 and February 1964 – exactly when The Beatles were catapulted from a British sensation to a global phenomenon.

Despite their emergence onto the global stage, a unique personal perspective not seen before is offered by this exhibition.

People can now see what it was like to be a Beatle at the start of ‘Beatlemania’, adjusting from playing gigs on UK stages, to performing to 73 million Americans on The Ed Sullivan show.

At a time when so many camera lenses were on the band, it is Paul McCartney’s which gets the close up of a band creating cultural history – in one of its most exciting chapters.

The exhibition will be from June 28 to October 1.

Self-portrait, Paul McCartney, 1964 Picture: Paul McCartney