Photograph: Iain Macmillan (1938 – 2006) | Date: August 8, 1969
Abbey Road is a world-famous street in the London borough of Westminster, not least because on August 8, 1969, near EMI’s recording studios of the same name, an equally world-famous foursome crossed a zebra crossing there.
The photograph, taken by Iain Macmillan while standing on a shaky three-meter-high ladder, appeared on the cover of Abbey Road (1969), the last album recorded by The Beatles. During the ten minutes in which the Fab Four walked back and forth several times, Macmillan took a series of six shots and chose the fifth because it was ‘the only one in which their legs form a perfect inverted V.’
The idea for the scene actually came not from Macmillan but from Paul McCartney. Because it was warm that day, he left the studio barefoot, unintentionally fueling wild speculation about his death. According to the macabre rumors, the barely visible number 28 on the Volkswagen’s license plate in the background also referred to his age at death—which was incorrect, because McCartney (‘The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated’) was 27 at the time.
The Volkswagen was sold to an American collector at Sotheby’s in 1986 for 2,530 pounds, while the white suit worn by John Lennon fetched roughly 100,000 euros at an auction in Las Vegas the previous year.
