Everyone who was at Woodstock -
it was one of the defining moments.
The same as you get married, you have a child,
being at Woodstock.
My name is Elliott Landy,
and I was one of the two official photographers
at Woodstock.
So you're asking me
if I had a sense of what was gonna happen?
Nobody had a sense of what was gonna happen.
The producers of the festival were so late
in getting permission to use the space
that they weren't ready to start the festival
when the festival was supposed to start.
And people came early.
And the fences were like half up and half down and so on.
And through the grace of wisdom,
the producers said, "We're not gonna fight with them,
this is a free festival."
And that was a brilliant thing to do - to be kind to people.
I think it's what it's about.
And I find that in life, the more you're kind to people,
the better life works out.
I was the only photographer
who had full stage access at all times.
That was a blessing, and it was also a limitation.
Because I was allowed to be on the stage,
I didn't wander out into the fields so much
and take as many pictures as I probably would do today
of the people that were there.
And I was on the stage a lot.
I would have loved to have had more photographs.
However, I only brought 80 rolls of film,
and I used that up. So I don't really know
if I could have taken too many more photographs,
even if I had wanted to.
Richie Havens, who was the first one to play,
and I'd known Richie since I was in college.
I always loved his music, and he was just incredible.
As he's coming offstage after singing "Freedom,"
and he walked through, I just looked out at the audience.
And I looked, I just saw freedom -
that all these people were just free.
They were doing what they wanted to do,
how they wanted to do it, when they wanted to do it.
So that's Janis Joplin on stage at Woodstock
and one of my favorite photographs of her.
I photographed her a lot.
And that's exuberance.
Joe Cocker. So this I was behind,
and he was facing the audience while I was snapping here.
He turned around and was facing me for a moment
and just got that.
Just incredible when he sings
"With a Little Help from My Friends".
It was such a beautiful moment.
And another spiritual moment: Swami Satchidananda.
And he wasn't scheduled to be on stage, from what I know,
but they needed somebody to take up some time
because the acts had trouble appearing.
So he went out on stage.
And it's very appropriate of what Woodstock was about
that it began with a blessing
and began with a conscious man who's trying to teach people
to be calm, to be good, to live life spiritually.
So this picture is of people
on the sound towers,
the towers that held the loudspeakers.
And they were put up very hurriedly
and they were not anchored super well.
And there was a great fear
on the part of the people that ran the festival
that they were gonna collapse
because they weren't made to have all these people on them
and so on.
Plus, when lightning started coming,
it was a lightning rod.
But luckily, when the people were warned, "Hey,
there's lightning coming, get off," they all got down.
So nobody stayed up there
and said, "You're not gonna get me."
Here is when it was about to rain.
I was on stage, and I don't know
if John Morrissey's stage announcer said anything or not,
but everyone saw the clouds coming.
They just rolled right in.
And so here was this picture of it.
You can see, on the side, them coming in.
I was under the stage, and by accident -
I had this Widelux camera - by accident, I hit the shutter.
And so you see the rain outside.
This is my favorite photograph of the crowd
and of the people in Woodstock.
This young lady, right,
personifies what that generation was about,
what people were about.
Nobody hassled anybody, everything was cool and easygoing.
She could be who she was and he could be who he was.
This guy, whatever he's contemplating,
he may have solved the mysteries of creation at this moment.
I don't know if anyone had a sense
that it would last -
that it would become so culturally meaningful,
so spiritually meaningful, so inspirational for people.
And that was simply people
agreeing to be kind to each other,
agreeing to share with each other,
agreeing not to be greedy about what was available to them.
Very simple. And that's why I see it
as an example for humanity, and that's why it lives on.