Through Townsend's percipient lens, we see the Stones slouching in an underpass, menacingly backlit, or tilted at a surreal angle against a wall, or inhabiting beer benches outside a pub in Earls Court. One shot sets them against a row of telephone boxes in Marble Arch.
Over the next two years he photographed the beautiful people who wintered and watered on the Riviera: Prince Rainier and his Hollywood wife, Princess Grace; a rare photo of Sir Winston Churchill with Aristotle Onassis; Marlon Brando and Joan Fontaine. Years later, when the sixties were losing their swing, he returned to capture a memorable shot of a visibly out-of-love Richard Burton at a party with Elizabeth Taylor.
He moved effortlessly into the nascent world of rock, photographing the Beatles many times, most memorably their first encounter with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. He also photographed other pop icons of the Sixties such as Gene Pitney, Johnny Ray, the Searchers, Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin.
