2007 London, Abbey Road. Zebra crossing and Beatle's Abbey Road CD
The Abbey Road picture belongs to my Souvenirs set. It was taken in October 2007. I had previously tried this shot in July 2005, about a week after the London bombings. A combination of factors made me dissatisfied with the results and I left one (lightly photoshopped) version in the set knowing that I would want to go back to it.
The problem with the first version was that I had not got close enough to the crossing. The original cover photography was done by Iain Macmillan, who had 10 minutes for the shoot on the 8th August 1969. Macmillan had an elevated perspective with a normal or slightly long lens for the original. According to Wikipedia the man on the pavement in the background is an American tourist who only found out much later that he had been immortalised. On the left of the original picture is a VW Beetle which they had tried to had moved for the shot. The owners lived in the apparment block opposite. Later, the number plate was stolen many times as a souvenir. The car was sold at auction in 1986 for $23,000 and is on display at the VW Museum in Wolfsburg, Germany.
I used the equivalent of a 24 mm on a Canon 10D for the first shoot. The traffic police came along while I was standing in the middle of the road and told me to move on or put on a signal jacket (which I did not have). I am not sure whether this was for car insurance or life insurance purposes but I am afraid I let myself get hassled by the situation which lead to the unsatisfactory results.
In 2007 I was a lot more relaxed. This time I had the equivalent of a 17 mm on my Canon 5D (same lens, different chip) and had thought through my strategy. I got into position in the middle of the road (with signal jacket) close up to the crossing and started adjusting the perspective through the lens. This time there was less traffic and I was determined to get a good result. As ever, the whole time cars are coming and going, people walking across the crossing, the usual chaos.
I found early on in my photography that, although difficult, it is usually good to let a bit of chaos get into your pictures. I like it when things happen in my pictures which I have not planned. Photography is a lot like dancing; you have to move and be aware of what you are dancing with in a long improvised movement in which you press the shutter intuitively. There are at least two aspects to this; one is the risk-taking which keeps you on your toes, the other is humility, the acceptance that complete control always excludes new ideas you may not have thought of.
The Abbey Road Studio's entrance
At this moment, where I was all set up, one of those moments happened. Abbey Road is a real holy shrine for Beatles fans; they come from all over the world to sign their names on the wall or to photograph themselves walking across the crossing. Just at that moment five young men from Germany had turned up, dressed in black to do just that. One of them took up a position behing me and to my right, while the other four began the crossing, at first from right to left.
I used this test run to see if the real figures in my viewfinder were approximately the same size as the Beatles on the CD in my viewfinder, adjusted by moving in a little more, lining up the lines at the side and on the crossing. The problem I was dealing with was that when they were behind the CD they were completely invisible, the joke would come when it would appear that they were walking out of the cover onto the crossing. I realised that the best bet would to have just one of the real figures walking on the crossing at approximately the same distance as between the figures on the cover. The problem with that was that I had no control over the movements of the Germans and would have to hope that luck was with me. And it was; instead of bunching up and hanging around on the edge of the crossing and my picture, they all moved quickly towards the guy with the camera, allowing me to pick off the straggler and make him into the fifth Beatle, apparently alone.
Including setting up, I took 35 pictures which coincidentally is a roll of 35mm film. According to the EXIF I started at 21.10.2007 at 13:00:03 with two test shots for the light began the actual shoot at 13:00:55 and finished at 13:02:39, so that the entire thing lasted about a minute and a half.
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Tags: michael hughes, michael_hughes, souvenirs, The making of...
I write a weekly blog, written from the perspective of a London cabbie.
At the moment I'm doing a piece on Abbey Road crossing (including people standing in the middle of the road getting in the way of my cab!) and would like to include your picture with of course attribution back to your site.
Your description of the original shoot was very interesting.
I welcome your link!
[...] Carmen Sandiego, he’s absconded with the Great Pyramids, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, Abbey Road, and much [...]
Very clever. You might enjoy seeing Abbey Road live any time you want via my website, http://www.webcamtraveler.com. The direct link is http://webcamtraveler.blogspot.com/2009/08/abbey-road-london-england.html.
I write to you from Russia. I very much liked your photo with Abbey Road. Really, all ingenious is simple. When you look at such picture, you think, why I have not guessed so to make
. Many thanks for the given pleasure. We in Russia very much love Beatles and everything, that with them is connected. Thank God, times when I can go to shop have come and buy precisely such disk which you hold in a hand and to take pleasure in qualitative sounding. I think, that day when I too will walk on this well-known transition will come. All blessings to you and good luck!