Monday’s Muse: Linda McCartney

Some of photographer Linda McCartney’s images are my most favourite images ever, and one of the reasons I ever picked up a camera in the first place. I love the energy she captured, mostly the candid and quiet moments of the amazing people she was around at the time, but also of her family. You can tell her subjects are relaxed and comfortable around her, saying as much about the lady behind the lens as the images reveal of her subjects.

She photographed some of my most favourite musicians – Aretha Franklin, Grace Slick, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, The Doors, John Lennon, and Neil Young. One image she photographed of Neil Young in 1967 was then used for the front cover of Sugar Mountain: Live at Canterbury House 1968. In that same year of ’68, Linda’s photograph of Eric Clapton for of Rolling Stone magazine, made her the first woman to have a photograph feature on the front cover of the cult magazine.

Adding to the list of reasons why we should love Linda McCartney is that she also wrote several vegetarian cookbooks, and started the Linda McCartney Foods company, stating that she did not “eat anything with a face… if slaughterhouses had glass walls the whole world would be vegetarian.” You can see where Stella gets her wisdom from.

However, Linda was possibly best known as the wife of Beatles front man, Paul McCartney. He called her Lily, the letters standing for Linda. I. Love. You.