A photographer called Iain Macmillan was a friend of John and Yoko and, during the morning of Friday 8 August 1969 found himself commissioned to take a photo of the Fab Four to adorn their latest studio release, an album finally called Abbey Road.
For the shoot, Iain Macmillan used a Hasselblad camera with a 50mm wide-angle lens, aperture f22, at 1/500 seconds.
The album had been due to be called Himalaya and the Beatles had the idea of flying to Nepal for the shoot. But with increasingly tense relations between them, nobody got around to arranging the trip.
The proposed album title now made little sense. As late as the first week in August, just weeks before the release date, the album was retitled Abbey Road - named after the road where EMI Studios was located and where most of the Beatles oeuvre was recorded.
As the group waited outside the studio for the shoot to begin, Linda McCartney took a number of extra photographs.
It was a very warm day in London.
A policeman was positioned at the junction of Abbey Road and Grove End Road, behind the photographer, and temporarily stopped the traffic. Macmillan mounted a stepladder for a few minutes and took six shots while the Beatles crossed the zebra crossing.
In four of the photographs, McCartney walked barefoot. Since his feet were getting too hot, for the other two he wore a pair of sandals.
The photograph was taken about 11.30am and about the same time, a continent away, Charles Manson and his “family” were about to slaughter Sharon Tate and her house guests in Southern California. Manson was obsessed with the Beatles music, particularly the track Helter Skelter from the White Album which he cited as his motivation for killing.
As the Beatles Bible writes: “Shortly after the shoot, McCartney studied the transparencies and chose the fifth one for the album cover. It was the only one when all four Beatles were walking in time. It also satisfied The Beatles’ desire for the world to see them walking away from the studios they had spent so much of the last seven years inside.”
The Volkswagen Beetle featured in the final photograph of the Abbey Road album cover belonged to Malcolm Tanner, a resident in the block of flats opposite the recording studio. Tanner kept a spare set of keys for the car even after selling it. Following the album's release, the car's number plate (LMW 281F) was repeatedly stolen. In 1986, the car was sold at auction for £2530, and after 2001, it was displayed in a museum in Germany.
The man looking back towards the camera was named Paul Cole, an American tourist who had gone for a walk while his wife went shopping. He died in 2008.
In the Linda McCartney photo below, the lady in the purple-striped coat talking to Ringo was a neighbour of the large house where the EMI Studios were installed.
Once the cover was released with the fifth photo chosen, it was reported to contain “clues” that Paul was dead. Part of the VW number plate read 281F — he’d be “28 if” he lived. His eyes are closed, he’s out of step with the others, he’s smoking and he’s barefoot (as are bodies when buried). The others are dressed – John in white as a preacher, George in jeans like a gravedigger, Ringo in black like a pallbearer.
After the Beatles completed their album cover photo shoot, Iain Macmillan explored the surrounding neighbourhood for additional opportunities. He discovered a street sign at the corner of Abbey Road and Alexandra Road, which he utilised for the back cover of the album. The junction where that photo was taken no longer exists; it was later replaced by the Abbey Road housing estate.
After the album’s release, its cover became iconic. The zebra crossing is now listed and a spot on the London tourist circuit. Such was the impact of the album, EMI Studios was renamed Abbey Road studios and became famous worldwide.