The Beatles Crossing the Road Description Pictures. The Beatles on the Zebra. The iconic photograph on Abbey Road has turned half a century. Before Elvis there was nothing

Remember the famous Beatles album cover, in which all 4 musicians cross the road at a pedestrian crossing? So, the photo was taken in London:

From February to August 1969, the musicians worked on their last album, Abbey Road, at a recording studio on Abbey Road. Having chosen the working title of the new disc - "Everest" - the musicians even planned to fly to the Himalayas to make a cover there, but everything turned out differently. The members of the group by that time were already in a tense relationship, so a long trip did not arouse much enthusiasm in anyone.

Paul McCartney suggested taking a photo on the street and even sketched a rough draft.


John Lennon and Yoko Ono found a photographer - Ian Macmillan.

The photo session took place on August 8, 1969 at about 11:30 am right outside the recording studio. Already in those years, Abbey Road was one of the busiest in the city - the police agreed to block traffic for only 10 minutes.

Ian Macmillan was filming musicians from the stairs. As the photographer recalls, having taken several pictures, he let the accumulated cars pass, and then quickly took pictures again. The photo that made the cover was the 5th of six photos taken. Only on it the musicians, as the photographer had planned, kept pace.

There is even a webcam installed here. Despite the fact that this is one of the busiest streets in London, you may be able to take pictures “like the Beatles” - especially if you are traveling with a group.

Almost 43 years ago the Beatles crossed the "zebra" street in north London. The famous Abbey Road photo shoot began at 11:30 a.m. on August 8, 1969 and lasted only 10 minutes.

To commemorate the Beatles' trip to the recording studio, photographer Ian McMillan ( Iain Macmillan) it took only 6 frames. The rest of the photos were taken by Mel Evans and Linda McCartney ...

Photographer Ian McMillan had ten minutes to take a picture: this section of the street was specially blocked by the police, since already at that time Abbey Road was one of the busiest in London. Macmillan took the group off the stairs and took six shots, one of which ended up on the cover.

Ian received this sketch from Paul McCartney a few days before filming. The sketch shows where to shoot and how the photo should look. Ian added his sketch in the upper right corner to confirm the layout.

Let's trace the order in which Ian Macmillan took the pictures:

Photo 1 - The Beatles begin their session crossing the road from Abbey Road Studios. Paul McCartney is still in sandals. VW Beetle is present for the rest of the session, but the police van is not yet visible.

Photo 2 - Paul continues walking in his slippers, but by the next frame he leaves them on the sidewalk.

Photo 3 - A line of cars and a bus appears. Paul is already walking barefoot.

Photo 4 - Another bus is waiting for the Beatles to cross the road.

Photo 5 - Familiar, famous cover photo where they keep pace. A police van appeared. This photo has been edited for use on the cover. The original photo has not been published.

In 2011, the album cover was ranked 26th in the list of the best album covers of all time according to the readers of the online publication. Music radar

This is the same photo as above, but with a slightly different shade. Remastered version of the photo in 2009.

Photo 6. The last snapshot of the session. Another bus is visible in the distance.

During his lifetime, Macmillan said in an interview: “I took several pictures of The Beatles crossing the street in one direction. Then we passed the cars and went the other way - I took a few more pictures. six. This was the only shot in which all four legs were in the shape of an inverted "V" - that's what I was aiming for. "

A Volkswagen Beetle car with number LMW281F, standing near the crossing, belonged to a resident of one of the neighboring houses. After the release of the album, the plate with the number was repeatedly stolen. In 1986, the car was sold at Sotheby's to an American collector for £ 2,530.

The white suit of the leader of The Beatles, John Lennon, was sold at the auction of the Braswell Galleries auction house in the United States for 46 thousand dollars. It was in these clothes that the legendary musician was captured on the cover of the Abbey Road album.

The white suit, in which Lennon is photographed crossing a walking zebra outside a recording studio on Abbey Road in London, was custom-made in 1969 by Russian-born French designer Edmond (Ted) Lapidus.

A casual onlooker (Paul Cole, a resident of Florida), who got caught in the lens of a camera while on vacation in London, became widely known. Later he said that then the musicians seemed to him like crazy.

Paul Cole himself noticed himself on the cover of the album only a year later, and he had to convince his relatives that it was he, and not anyone else.

In 2004, in an interview with the Scripps newspaper, Mr. Cole told an amazing story ...

In the 1960s, Paul Cole ran a small shop in Deerfield Beach, Florida. He worked a lot, had little rest. In 1969, his wife persuaded him to take a vacation and rush to London for a week. Paul agreed.

While in London, his wife dragged him to numerous museums and exhibitions, which quickly bored Paul. Refusing to enter another museum, he told his wife: “Honey, we have already visited ten museums! If you want to enter the eleventh, then without me. " His wife gratified his desire and left him to chill on the street. Paul found the shade as he turned onto Abbey Road, lined with trees on either side.

And this is a re-enactment - 'Abbey Road' from Paul Cole's perspective

Twenty meters from him, four guys kept crossing from one side of the street to the other. This process was filmed by a photographer who periodically ran out with a stepladder to the middle of the street. "These freaks are Englishmen!" Paul thought to himself. Being a person far from popular music, he absolutely did not recognize in these guys George Harrison, Paula McCartney, Ringo starr and John Lennon.

As you know, the photographer took several pictures for the cover. ‘Abbey Road’ to choose one of them. So Paul Cole is present in all the pictures.

Only a year later, in 1970, Paul noticed a record with the same photograph on the shelves of music stores. Paul bought it and brought it home to show it to his wife and children. "Take a magnifying glass, kids, and find your father!"- he grinned.

All these years, he silently shared fame with the Liverpool four, appearing with them on magazine covers, T-shirts, posters, mugs, badges, postage stamps and other products.

Paul Cole died in 2008 in Florida, just before he was 96 years old. In 1969, without knowing it, he proved that the phrase worked "At the right time, in the right place".

Since then, the cover of the new album has become legend for two reasons - no cover like this has been the subject of so many imitations, and no cover like this has spawned so many conspiracy legends.

For kooky fans with a fevered imagination, this was the ultimate proof of the delusional legend of the day that Paul McCartney was indeed dead.

According to this legend, Paul died in a car accident and was replaced by a double. The band, legend has it, felt guilty of this deception and placed hidden signs on the album cover for their fans.

Thus, even today, despite Sir Paul's pronounced health, they continue to insist that if you look closely at the images on the front and back of the cover, you will find symbols of death hidden there.

There is no doubt that this album meant only one death. It was not yet known to the public at the time that the Beatles were in their final stages of disbandment, and this was their last album.

Relations between the band members deteriorated so much that they abandoned the original title of the album Everest and the photography in the Himalayas, and instead filmed outside the studio - and that was the only thing they did by mutual agreement.

Ardent fans, however, could read a lot more from the photographs.

1.FUNERAL

The Beatles' zebra crossing marks Paul's funeral. John Lennon walks in front in a white suit and symbolizes the priest.

Ringo Star is a black-clad mourner. George Harrison, in a messy shirt and jeans, represents the gravedigger. Paul is wearing an old suit and he is the only one who goes barefoot.

He later explained that he started filming with sandals, but later took them off as it was a very hot day. The adherents of the legend say that if this is really the case, then walking on hot asphalt is uncomfortable, and this once again confirms that Half is a corpse.

2. CIGARETTE

Paul is left-handed, but here he is holding a cigarette in his right hand. Cigarettes are usually said to be "nails in the coffin lid." Thus, this is a sign that Paul's "coffin lid" is boarded up, and the person in the photo is his double.

Paul is also out of step with the rest of the group. Everyone has a left leg in front, and Paul has a right one, which again confirms that he is different from the others.

3.REGISTRATION NUMBER

The white Volkswagen Beetle in the background has registration number LMW 28IF. Conspiracy theorists say this means Paul would have been 28 IF he hadn't died.

Paul was actually 27 years old when Abbey Road was released, but luckily for conspiracy theorists, Indian mystics calculate a person's age from conception, not birth, so in that case Paul would really be 28 years old.

This is evidenced by the fact that the musicians were famous adherents of the Indian guru Maharishi Mahesh Yoga. LMW is also believed to stand for “Linda McCartney Weeps,” referring to Paul's wife, whom he married earlier this year.

4 viewers

In the background, a small group of white-clad people stand on one side of the street, while a lonely man stands on the other side.

Does this mean that Paul is alone and separate from the others?

5.POLICE MINIBUS

There is a black police minivan on the right side of the street, and this is a reference to the police being silent about "Paul's death."

Legend has it that the band's manager Brian Epstein bought that silence, and the presence of a bobby policeman in the photo is another thank you.

6.LINE OF MACHINES

You can draw a line from the Volkswagen Beetle to the three cars in front of it. If you run it through their right wheels, it will just touch Paul's head, and, according to theorists, this means that Paul received a head wound in a car accident.

7 BLOOD SPOT

A spot can be seen on the Australian version of the album. It can be seen as a bloody stain on the road, it is located between Ringo and John, indirectly confirming the version of a car accident.

Linda McCartney and Mel Evans were present during the entire session and took many photographs. Many of them have not yet been published due to legal proceedings. But some of them are available.

Before the shooting, while the police were waiting, and during the rehearsal, several photos were taken:

I want to warn you right away that I took all the information from open sources and something from my own memory. I can assume that people who are true fans of the Beatles are very jealous of the history of the group and the details associated with it. I apologize if I made any inaccuracies.

2. First, I want to show you a diagram of how to get to this place in London. Take the metro to St. John's Wood station (link to metro map) and go down about 400 meters to Abbey Road:

3. We leave the metro. This is how the station looks like:

3. Going down the Grove End Road. On the left side I noticed the St. John and St. Elizabeth Hospital. On the left, the window of the hospital dining room overlooks the planted flowers on the hill. What is the care of the sick:

4. At the intersection of Abbey Road and Grove End there is a memorial to the famous sculptor Edward Onslow Ford:

5. The memorial offers a view of the very passage where Beatle fans and just tourists constantly crowd:

6. Everyone wants to get themselves in the frame at the transition:

7. And back in 1969, during a Beatles photo shoot, everything was different:

8. There are many legends about the history of this cover and photography. Why is Paul barefoot, why is John in white, etc. There is a lot of information on the net, here are a couple of links to these topics and:

9. Well, by tradition, photos with me are clickable. In order to add my LJ as a friend, you can click on my cool scarf:

10. Let's take a closer look at the transition. They say (write) that it was slightly shifted from the historical place. Read more on Wikipedia:

11. Well, we continue to admire the creativity of the enthusiastic:

12. Asians have always been famous for their plasticity:

13. Look, the same guy as in the first photos. Although a lot of time has passed. Everyone walks and walks along the passage. He enjoys and angers car drivers:

14. Let's take a break from the Beatles for a while and walk a little further along Abbey Road. Literally 200 meters away, there is a very beautiful Baptist Church Abbey Road Baptist Church:

15. Pay attention to the car behind the fence. Parishioners arrived:

16. Well, we will come back, because you and I have not looked at another legend of Abbey Road Studios:

17. She continues to work today thanks to her popularity:

Very famous world musicians have recorded here. From Russian, in 2006, the Time Machine group recorded their album Time Machine here. Andrei Makarevich spoke very flatteringly about the work on the album at that time.

18. Login:

19. This is the same porch in 1969:

20. They didn’t let me inside:

22. A few more places where fans like to leave here were your tracks. Brickwork Fence Studio:

24. And the gate supports:

26. Another attraction is the studio's webcam:

It is directed to the Abbey Road crosswalk. If you go to the studio's website, you can see what is happening there online. Here is the link to the camera: http://www.abbeyroad.com/Crossing. The delay of the picture is about 2 minutes.

28. And finally, a bench on which it is indicated in which area of ​​London the famous passage is located:

In conclusion, I propose to watch my video footage of which was shot in parallel with the photos of this post:

That's all. In the previous parts, see

Image copyright Reuters

The legendary shot of the Beatles on Abbey Road is 50 years old. The author of one of the most recognizable photographs in the world, Ian Macmillan, took it on August 8, 1969.

The picture shows John Lennon, Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney and George Harrison crossing Abbey Road in St. John's Wood. They go to house number 3, where the recording studio is located (in fact, the photographer chose from several frames the one where the musicians go in the direction from studio).

Subsequently, the photo became the cover of the album of the same name, which was released in September 1969. The photo for the cover of the Abbey Road album was chosen by Paul McCartney. He also owned the very idea of ​​the cover.

Photographer Ian McMillan was only allowed 10 minutes to shoot. He did six takes, balancing on a stepladder as the Beatles crossed the street back and forth on a zebra crossing.

Abbey Road Studios' Instagram has a selection of photographs of celebrities who were photographed at the famous crossing.

Many legends are associated with photography, and the pedestrian crossing itself has become a place of pilgrimage for tourists copying the gait of the legendary Liverpool four.

Image copyright Getty Images
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According to one of the legends, the album had the working title "Everest", in honor of the cigarettes of the same name, which were smoked by studio engineer Jeff Emerick, but during the discussion of the cover of the upcoming record, Paul McCartney said that for photography he would have to go to the mountains and said that it was easier and safer name the album by the name of the street outside the window. The rest of the Beatles agreed.

Image copyright Natalie Culmone

McCartney not only came up with the idea for the cover, but also sketched it in pencil. On the appointed day, the band showed up for the shoot in Tommy Nutter suits - all except for George Harrison, who opted for a more "hippie" look. At first, Paul McCartney posed in sandals, but then took them off and remained barefoot.

Image copyright Jenna mary popp

The fact that McCartney has no shoes on, his eyes are closed, and he does not walk in step with the others, gave impetus to the birth of another urban legend: the cover contains an encrypted message about the recent death of the musician. It is allegedly part of a funeral procession led by John Lennon, a priest in white robes, and George Harrison, an undertaker in work clothes.

Image copyright Júlio Andrade

Conspiracy theorists even "read" the registration number of the Volkswagen "Beetle" that slowed down at the crossing - LMW 281F, seeing in it the abbreviation meaning "Linda is crying", meaning Linda McCartney, and reading the second part of the number as 28 IF (28 if) - Paul would be 28 years old if he was alive. The fact that Paul McCartney was actually 27 years old at the time of the recording did not bother the conspiracy theorists.

The transition itself remains today the only "zebra" that can be observed on the Internet in real time.

I wanted to look at England through a webcam, since I can't go there. Using a webcam search engine, I found an intersection on Abbey Road in London.

Cars scurry back and forth. I feel that my head is spinning. Ah, I guessed - this is because they have left-hand traffic.
Here are the pedestrians. Grouped up and stand at the crosswalk. Drivers in England are polite - they stop, let pedestrians pass, but they don't. They will come to the road, then they will go away. Or they will cross the transition, and then return back. I think maybe the tourists ... Don't know which way to go? Strange behavior, isn't it? So I got interested. She began to observe further. Further screenshots from the computer.

Finally the two pedestrians got bolder and started walking. One ran out onto the road and took pictures of the second, who was walking on the zebra. Strange, what, I think. Who already guessed - keep quiet!

I was even more surprised when the third flock of pedestrians began to take pictures. This phenomenon excited my brain. I began to look for various options for such behavior, called my husband and daughter. Marvel, I say, how strange people behave. At the family council, we made two assumptions:
1. This is some kind of English flash mob. People take pictures at pedestrian crossings, then upload pictures somewhere.
2. On the side where the lens gaze is directed - there is some kind of landmark against which they are photographed, and at the transition - because this is a convenient shooting point, possibly the center of the frame.
Well, okay, I think I found a couple of explanations and that's enough, I was satisfied. But she did not turn off the camera.

On the second day, sorting through my mail, reading my bookmarks, I find this - a webcam on Abbey Road.
This second day just shocked me! People are more actively taking pictures. In sequence. "What is this being done?" - my brain explodes with inexplicable surprise and incomprehensibility. A little less, but still surprising the behavior of the drivers. Cars don't just let pedestrians pass: they are patient! are waiting! when the latter take a photo and no one beeps !!! I feel like I'm imbued with respect for English drivers.

Suddenly I see how the next group of pedestrians is evenly distributed along the pedestrian crossing and "freezes" in its march - as if a freeze frame. Hands swing in different directions, legs take a wide step. "STOP! I've seen this somewhere before, ”I think, and my hands are already typing in this strange Abbey Road in a search engine, but what is it? !!


Here's what I found about this strange street with strange pedestrians.

Undoubtedly, one of the main attractions of Abbey Road is the recording studio of the same name. The studio is known for recording its musical masterpieces within its walls such world-famous bands as: The Beatles, Pink Floyd, The Shadows, Mike Oldfield, Duran Duran and others.
Legendary rock band The Beatles have named their latest album after the Abbey Road recording studio of the same name. The Abbey Road studio is still in operation today. The groups Keane, Oasis, U2, Leningrad and Patrizio Buanne visit its walls to record their hits.
A large number of fans visit the famous street and recording studio every day, leaving graffiti on the fence and taking pictures at the famous pedestrian crossing, which is captured on the cover of the Beatles' latest album. By the way, the Abbey Road pedestrian crossing has been awarded Grade II status by the English Heritage Foundation, which means that this crossing is under state protection.

And here, by the way, is the morning tourist. Vermia in the lower left corner. The fact that the tourist photographs is precisely the entrance to the record company.

Yeah, and promise you won't laugh too loud, okay? The inscription over the photo "Webcam on Abbey Road (a street in London). The street became famous after the Beatles' album of the same name" did not tell me anything until I found this picture. what can I say, my thinking is figurative, I think in pictures. And the words ... but who cares what they write there ... the main thing is what I see :)))

That was such an amazing day for me at the beginning of December. My husband said that when we were in London, we would also take a picture at the Abbey Road pedestrian crossing.
You can view the street through a webcam

 

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