David Hurn began his career as a self-taught freelance photographer and gained an early reputation with his reportage of the 1956 Hungarian revolution. Hurn eventually turned away from coverage of current affairs, preferring to take a more personal approach to photography. In 1964, Hurn was asked by a friend – Dick Lester – who was about to direct the first Beatles film ‘A Hard Day’s Night’, to photograph the movie’s production. Shooting the band from a ‘sociological’ rather than press perspective, Hurn gained unique insight into the pressures that Beatlemania exerted on the four young musicians.
