Astrid Kirchherr

You expressed yourself by looking different from other people. We even looked different from each other. But among the Exis, there was a close group of us, Klaus Voormann, Jurgen Wollmer and me. Klaus and I always wore black.

Our post-war generation were struggling to escape the past and the burden of guilt we carried and to find a new way.

Stuart was a very special person and he was miles ahead of everybody. You know as far as intelligent and artistic feelings are concerned, he was miles ahead. So I learned a lot from him and because in the '60s we had a very strange attitude towards being young, towards sex, towards everything.

John's legacy? His bravery. When he had the power, he used it. He really wanted peace on Earth, and John's lyrics, well, that's the brave poetry of the '60s. If he had stayed with us, he could have done so much more.

After Stu, I liked John and George. Then I like Pete Best. Paul I found hard to get close to.

From the first time I saw them, I knew they weren't just five dirty little boys from Liverpool without an education.

I like to choose the people I take photographs of, but when you make your living off it, you've got to take everybody.

I was initially attracted to John when I first went to see them play. Then I got to know Stuart because he was John's best friend. Our hearts took over from there.

I love Liverpool and it is great to be back in the city.

For me, they are still my dear friends, not the Beatles.

I have never met a man who I could still say, 'That is the love of my life.' Stuart is. I never met anybody as full of love and giving as this young man.

When Stuart passed away, I was so young and so selfish about living and having fun.

I just had the joy of taking pictures, and I never cared about my negatives. I just gave them away whenever anybody asked for them.

I'm a very, very silly girl.

We knew of Sartre and we dressed like the French existentialists. Our philosophy then, and remember we were only little kids, was more in following their looks than their thoughts. We were going around looking moody.

I didn't take that many pictures of The Beatles, but I did photograph them before anybody else knew about them, and that makes me proud. I saw something in them.

I was wanting something new, and for me the Beatles were... outstanding. I was breathless, speechless.

When I met the Beatles, they were wearing these funny little leather jackets, which inspired me. I had a suit made for myself out of fine, good black leather. It looked different. I was using leather but putting a different fashion angle on how it looked.

Black and white means photography to me. It's much easier to take a good color photograph, but you can get more drama into a black and white one.

They are my friends. If they are the Beatles or the kings of China, it doesn't matter lo me.

I always thought Stuart deserved a little bit of fame. He was a gifted artist and a very wonderful person.

It is a serious job being a portrait photographer, which is how I saw myself.

For me, the music of the Beatles then was serious and very, very serious art. So I couldn't take a picture of John laughing his head off or pulling funny faces because he was a serious artist, even when he was only 20.

I'm not a businesswoman... I never looked after my negatives and you need that to prove you took the photographs.

I've hardly taken a photograph since 1967.