       1969, three and a half days encapsulating the energy birthed from drugs, sex, and pure unadulterated love for music. An estimated million people drove, camped, and hitchhiked from all around to be a part of the movement. With headliners like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and The Grateful Dead, crowds flocked the stages no matter the weather to feel the music beating through their bones and through their veins in sync with whatever other recreational drugs were flowing through their system. The woman in the photograph embodies the pure love which resonates from a soul gripped by the music, exaggerated by the blurred background, high contrast, and angles her body bends against the sea of fans behind her, without a care in the world beyond the noise coming from the speakers, showing exactly why Woodstock was so legendary.

The woman claims the eye’s attention being right smack in the middle of an endless sea of people. She’s the main focus, however, the blurred background brings to question the bigger picture. Photographers from all around came to Woodstock to capture the energy which would never make it to the TV for outsiders to watch. It was their job to draw the festival’s essence through the lens of the camera. Making the surrounding audience blur into an indistinct background creates the illusion of a vast and never ending crowd of people all there for the same reason the woman was. No one else’s face is visible, but the expression of the woman’s face shows there was something extra special in the air, and one can assume, everyone around her felt it too. Drugs and alcohol mingles between the crowds, but almost any story recounted about the great Woodstock will affirm that despite the fact that people were drinking or doing drugs, there was no violence, no fights, just community, just as the hippies preached it. This is demonstrated by the fact that the woman has gotten the help of other people to lift her above the crowd so that the sound waves would make it to her in a straight shot. 

It’s written across her face, an expression recognized by anyone who has felt that feeling before. Pure love for music. With her eyes cast down and a small smile shaping her lips, it’s clear that the power of the beat leaving the speakers grabbed a little part of her heart and drew it in to join everyone else’s. The combination of her closed eyes and leaned back head, is a universal sign of someone ‘feeling the music.’ The angles she bends her body in relation to the camera angle, exaggerates her proportions and make her look even more carefree. What makes this photograph even more visually pleasing is the fact that the high contrast draws the eyes in a linear, zigzag path made by the highlights cast on her body. It goes from the top of her head, to her shoulder, elbow, and then following the path, down to her hand and hips. The fact that this image sends the eye on such a natural path down the center of the photo, makes it that much more interesting for the viewer to look at in comparison to a subject who is just sitting straight up on someone’s shoulders. It also helps that the subject is going topless. But, that was the nature of Woodstock and the nature of the hippy movement iconic to the festival, further showing how the photograph encapsulates all of the best parts of those three and a half days.

Many women embraced the liberty of ‘freeing the nipple’ as it was made acceptable amongst the bands of people. The subject of the photo was clearly in practice. That was the epitome of everything the festival stood for, love and acceptance. People often bathed in nearby streams or rivers or would go skinny dipping to escape the heat, but no one complained because no one cared about what other people were doing, everyone was just trying to have a good time. The sense of community was strengthened by one of the central missions to get high. Either the rolled up paper in the woman’s hand is a cigarette or it’s a joint filled with marijuana which was a staple to the festival along with psychedelics, opium, and cocaine. Like with the woman in the photo, joints were often passed around or used as a way to get to know other people. Sharing the same drug induced fog brought the people together. Acid was another form of drug that was flowing between the crowds. People would often sell strips of it to other festival goers and they even had tents set up for people having bad trips. However, despite the negative connotation that would usually be associated with a large percentage of people under the influence, there were only two drug related deaths throughout the entire three days, but then again there were also two births. 

With her head bent back up towards the sky, embracing all the stage has to offer her, the woman in this photograph became one amongst many iconic photographs at Woodstock. It was hard not to take a photograph that captured the spirit of the festival, but the entire nature of this photograph brings together all of the best elements of the legendary Woodstock. The music, the drugs, and the freedom which stitched together a bunch of strangers into one big community trailing behind the woman in the photo.  Many people don’t understand the magic that went down during those three days. Many people will never be able to experience something so raw and life changing. The only thing the rest of us have left, are the photos and the stories. 
