Bill Eppridge’s Incredible Images of Woodstock in 1969

An estimated 400,000 young guns turned up and entered a weekend of music fueled by sex, drugs, and of course, rock and roll. The turn up was unexpected; around 186,000 tickets were sold so promoters thought around 200,000 would attend. But on Friday night, the flimsy fences and ticket barriers came down and organizers announced the festival was free, prompting thousands more to head to the concert, which led to traffic jams that were eight miles long.

Dozens of photographers headed down to capture this momentous event on film and one of them was Bill Eppridge, a photojournalist for Life magazine at the time. Eppridge became a visual historian during his career, capturing images of politicians, performers, sports figures, and activists that became relics of the most tragic and joyous moments in history.

The photographer’s images capture the flower children, the muddy fields, the naked swimmers, and general frivolity of the festival through a sun-colored lens, only adding to the dream-like quality of the series. The beauty in Eppridge’s photography is the balance between wide crowd shots, which provide a sense of scale, and more personal moments between one or two people, allowing viewers to feel like they jumped the fence and joined in as well. It demonstrates the photographer’s canny ability to be able to use the narrative of Woodstock to tell other, often smaller stories all within the same series.

Take a look at more of the Eppridge’s images below to recapture the footloose and fancy-free fun of the summer of 1969:

Explore more:

– 1968: The Year That Changed America