LIFE With the Beatles: Inside Beatlemania, by their Official Photographer Robert Whitaker

In the mid-1960s, when so much was happening in the world and the volume everywhere seemed dialed up to 11, the Beatles were the biggest thing on the planet. Their fans screamed from the fences as the Fab Four walked across the airport tarmac or into a vast stadium. They wanted to touch the Beatles. They wanted to know the Beatles. Who might help them? One photographer was inside. The young Australian Robert Whitaker had been noticed by Beatles manager Brian Epstein, who then hired him. When Beatlemania exploded, Whitaker was along for the wild ride. He was backstage, he was in the studio, he went to the boys' homes, he became their friend and confidante (He grew particularly close to John). Robert Whitaker fashioned many of the iconic Beatles images, and all his pictures of the band were taken in the period that Beatles fans most like to remember: when they were fab, when they changed our culture.