Philip Townsend

Philip Townsend is a British photographer who photographed many British rock groups during the 1960s and 70s. He was the first to photograph the Rolling Stones at the request of their then manager Andrew Loog Oldham. These revealing shots from 1963 are on display at the Morrison Hotel Gallery website. (They are copyrighted preventing me from showing them here.)

Meanwhile, here's a photograph of the early Rolling Stones from another source. It is rare in that it shows them smiling. It must have been taken before their manager at the time Andrew Loog Oldham decided that the group members should not be photographed smiling, presumably to distinguish them from that other rock and roll band of nice non-threatening boys. (The Stones projected a bad boy image.) Subsequently, the Stones would not be photographed smiling until most recent times.