Viswa Vanapalli
Netflix’s ‘Trainwreck: Woodstock ’99’ is a three-part docuseries from Jamie Crawford that looks at the much-maligned revival of the Woodstock music festival in 1999. The three-day event faced several problems throughout, ending with the concertgoers looting and vandalizing the place. Lisa Law, a photographer who was present for the original Woodstock as well as the one in 1999, talked about how things were different between the two. So, if you’re curious to find out more, we’ve got you covered.
Who is Lisa Law?
Lisa grew up in Burbank, California, and was raised along with two brothers. She left the city in 1959 and moved to San Francisco, California, to live with an aunt. There, Lisa met Frank Werber, a talent manager, who hired her as his personal assistant and also gave her a professional camera. In 1965, Lisa met Tom Law, her future husband. She lived with him and two others in a house called The Castle.
The Castle was visited by several musicians, artists, and actors, giving Lisa ample subjects to click pictures of. There, she photographed Andy Warhol, Bob Dylan, and Barry McGuire, among others. She said in 1987, “I was so excited about what I was seeing that I wanted to remember it. I wanted to put on film what I saw. . . . The music and the demonstrations, civil rights, and anti-Vietnam, the back to the land movement and the festivals. I saved and cared for the negatives.”
Lisa also lived in Mexico with Tom for a while before moving back to California. There, she continued her photography and documentation, covering the flower children of Haight-Ashbury, Hari Krishna followers and yoga classes, the peace marches, and finally, Woodstock in 1969. She said of the event, “It was just beautiful. There was mud every place. And people were making their own music, even in the campgrounds. Everybody else helped everybody else.”
There, Lisa also remembered wanting to cook free food for the people attending and asked the organizers for $3000 to buy ingredients to make muesli. In the end, Lisa believed that she and her team were able to feed around 130,000 people. On the show, Lisa talked about what stuck out to her during the 1999 Woodstock event. She couldn’t take garbage being strewn about and even drove around with trash bags, but it did little to change the condition of the grounds.
Where is Lisa Law Today?
Lisa and Tom had four children and lived in Truchas, New Mexico, until their divorce in 1977. Her extensive documentation of the events from the 1960s led to a documentary and a book titled ‘Flashing on the Sixties.’ Furthermore, Lisa has ensured her work helped specific causes; the people who are homeless in San Francisco, the struggles of the Navajo and Hopi nations, and the El Salvadorians’ resistance to military oppression.
Lisa uses her camera to bring attention to the rights of people of the indigenous nations as well. Apart from that, she has worked at a pastry shop, sold Native American blankets and jewelry, did wedding photography, and cleaned houses. Lisa also started a museum that provides a peek into how she shot the 1960s. In 2019, Lisa opened a museum in Yelapa, Mexico, as well. In the same town, she builds and designs houses. Lisa currently lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She spends her time tending to her vegetable garden and her five grandchildren.
