They have been hailed on many occasions as one of the greatest bands in history, and now you have the chance to own a slice of The Beatles. For the cover of their Abbey Road album, the group crossed the now-famous Abbey Road pedestrian crossing many times while photographer Iain Macmillan snapped away.
Now six rare photographs from that August 8th, 1969 session will be going up for auction in November through Bloomsbury Auctions.
But before you reach for the phone and your wallet, you might want to know that it is expected to reach a $100 000 price tag. In 2012 one of the outtakes from the day was sold for $25,000 in London.
Macmillan took up position on a stepladder in the middle of the road, while a police officer held up traffic for a number of minutes. The equipment used to capture one of the most iconic album covers of all time? Well, it was a Hasselblad medium format camera with a 50mm lens at f/22 and 1/500s.
The entire shoot yielded only six photographs – three of the band members walking from left to right, and three of them walking in the opposite direction. But what makes this auction special is that it is believed to be the first time that all six photographs will be auctioned off as a complete set – although 25 sets were printed by Macmillan.
“They are incredibly rare. I’ve spoken to other music dealers and no one has been able to find a complete set on the market for at least 10 years,” Sarah Wheeler, head of photography at Bloomsbury Auctions, told The Guardian.
Of the six images that were taken within the 10 minute time-frame, it was photo number five that eventually became the cover art. The back image of the Abbey Road album, a photograph of the ‘Abbey Road’ street sign with a blurry blue-dressed girl in shot, will also be going up for auction.
“That photo’s been called an icon of the 60s. I suppose it is. I think the reason it became so popular is its simplicity. It’s a very simple, stylised shot. Also it’s a shot people can relate to. It’s a place where people can still walk,” Macmillan said in 1989.
[Source – The Guardian, Image – reproduction by Bloomsbury Auctions, header – CC by 2.0/Eduard Díaz i Puig]
