NYC PHOTOGRAPHER RELEASES HIS 1960s-ERA BEATLES PHOTOS

It's sort of amazing that after all these years there are still "new" photos of The Beatles turning up. Most recently this set of mid-'60s gems has been dusted off for the public by native New York photographer Henry Grossman.

The Plaza Hotel, New York City, 1964 (Henry Grossman)

Most of the 7,000 photographs in Grossman’s Beatles archive—shot between 1964 and 1968—were never published or made available for purchase. But now the photojournalist, who became close to the band and promised to never sell the images to any tabloids, has released them for the public to see.

The photographer's relationship with the foursome began in 1964 when they played The Ed Sullivan Show, which he shot for LIFE. By the following year he was traveling with the group to The Bahamas and Austria during the filming of Help! , and was getting invited to their homes. He told the NY Times that he became particularly close to George Harrison.

“After that, anytime I went to London, I’d check into my hotel, call their office to find out George’s phone number du jour—they had to change them, because the fans would find them out—and I’d arrange to spend a day with them. Often, I was in Europe to shoot something else, and I didn’t have a Beatles-related assignment.”

Click through for a look at The Beatles through Grossman's lens, and we've also include a few other shots from Rock Paper Photo archives... some of which were taken by Lennon's "lost weekend" lover May Pang of the Beatle lounging on a beach on Long Island.