Essay research - sixties counter culture and psychedelia

Before I chose the images which I was going to analyse I spent a considerable amount of time looking through back issues of IT and OZ online.  There are two IT websites where you can view the whole magazine online.  OZ was a bit more limited and there were only a handful where you could look at the whole magazine.


These are some of the covers I considered using:

I printed this particular page from IT  for two reasons:

1. The wonderful John Peel

2.  The advert is for a Small Faces album which was an album I had photographed for Collection 100.  By some strange coincidence I found out this ad had been banned and withdrawn as it para-phrased the Lords Prayer then shortly after I came across it whilst carrying this research out!

Here are the notes I made as my research progressed.  I spent a lot of time chosing the magazine covers and was drawn to the ones which referred to current issues however this would have taken me away from the Psychedelic art link.

Primary research

I was drawn to this period in history for a number of reasons, one being I was born in 1968 and also it fascinates me that my parents were living in suburban Bolton when all this history making stuff was happening in London.  I am fortunate to be friends with a lady called Wendy Jones who was married to a fairly famous bass player in the sixties who played with a signed band Billy J Kramer and The Dakotas.  Wendy lived in London for 1965 to 1972 so I knew she could help me contextualise this period.  She was also involved with the Women's rights movement and got involved in all kinds of protests.  One particular opinion she had of this period really resonated with the research I was doing.  She said it was a time of great optimism. when people were setting up small businesses anywhere and really believed they could change the world.