--- title: Artist Hannah Rothstein Images Behind the Scenes of Famous Photos description: An artist imagines what was really going on in your favorite photos canonical: https://time.com/3813614/famous-photographs-behind-the-scenes/ author: Samantha Grossman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-04-09T15:02:39.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:47:46.390Z og:title: These Clever Images Offer a Fresh Perspective on Iconic Photographs og:description: An artist imagines what was really going on in your favorite photographs og:url: https://time.com/3813614/famous-photographs-behind-the-scenes/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5aff7d3ccbede6aa/6987ea04e53aba250d4db30d/udemy-abbey-road.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1820 og:image:height: 1024 og:image:alt: Udemy - Abbey Road og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: These Clever Images Offer a Fresh Perspective on Iconic Photographs twitter:description: An artist imagines what was really going on in your favorite photographs twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5aff7d3ccbede6aa/6987ea04e53aba250d4db30d/udemy-abbey-road.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # These Images Envision What Went on Behind the Scenes of Iconic Photographs > Sponsored content. 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The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. by [Samantha Grossman](https://time.com/author/samantha-grossman/) ## Samantha Grossman Apr 9, 2015 3:02 PM UTC  Hannah Rothstein by [Samantha Grossman](https://time.com/author/samantha-grossman/) ## Samantha Grossman Apr 9, 2015 3:02 PM UTC Have you ever looked at a photograph and wondered what was happening just beyond the frame? Well, if you haven’t, this new series from artist [Hannah Rothstein](http://www.hrothstein.com/) might make you think differently. Rothstein partnered with online learning website Udemy to share her vision of what was _really_ happening in some of history’s most iconic images, like the Beatles walking across Abbey Road, above. [The series](https://www.udemy.com/photography-masterclass-your-complete-guide-to-photography/#famousphotos) is called “Context Is Key: Beyond the Frames of Famous Photos.” “I was interested in examining the concept that photographers choose what we see,” Rothstein tells TIME. “They almost can lie — or rather, they can tell the truth that they want to see. And we forget that, because images are very powerful and they are a representation of reality, but they are someone else’s reality.” Rothstein began by choosing photos she knew people would recognize. She eventually settled on five images that had a clean physical composition and that were posed. (Several of the more photojournalistic images she found depicted serious subject matter that she didn’t want to make light of, she says.) She got to work sketching her own additional scenes by hand and then she digitally blended those with the original photos. The result? A series of images that are funny and lighthearted — but which also remind us to think a bit more deeply about what we see around us.  Hannah Rothstein  Hannah Rothstein  Hannah Rothstein See the complete series [here](https://www.udemy.com/photography-masterclass-your-complete-guide-to-photography/#famousphotos). ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3813614/famous-photographs-behind-the-scenes/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3813614/famous-photographs-behind-the-scenes/"},"headline":"These Images Envision What Went on Behind the Scenes of Iconic Photographs","datePublished":"2015-04-09T15:02:39.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:47:46.390Z","description":"An artist imagines what was really going on in your favorite photos","url":"https://time.com/3813614/famous-photographs-behind-the-scenes/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Arts"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5aff7d3ccbede6aa/6987ea04e53aba250d4db30d/udemy-abbey-road.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Samantha Grossman","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/samantha-grossman/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5aff7d3ccbede6aa/6987ea04e53aba250d4db30d/udemy-abbey-road.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Udemy - Abbey Road","caption":"","creditText":"Hannah Rothstein","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3813614/famous-photographs-behind-the-scenes/","name":"These Images Envision What Went on Behind the Scenes of Iconic Photographs"}}]}] ```