Friday morning, August 8, 1969. St. John’s Wood, northwest London.
The Beatles gather outside EMI Studios for a photo session, hoping to capture the image that would become the cover of their next, and final, LP.
John Lennon hires Scottish photographer Iain Macmillan. He is given 10 minutes.
The Beatles walk across the street single-file in front of the studio. They do this six times. Macmillan takes a shot each time the band crosses the street.
Six frames and the session is over.
Everybody back inside.
Paul McCartney chooses frame 5 as the keeper. It would become one of the most iconic images in the history of rock.
Iain Macmillan’s six-frame series, in the order the photos were taken:
Simple. Perfect.
Sometimes 10 minutes is all you need.
A selection of other photographs taken during the shoot, some of which were taken by Linda McCartney:
therockfile.wordpress.com 
Nice blog
see what will happen when 4 guy’s hanging around abby road can do in 10 minutes
one of the greatest album covers of all time!
just 4 guys hanging out on the steps – thats what they were at their best – 4 friends hanging out working together – so simple
Great cover! I wonder if they realized that there was a VW Beetle in the foreground of all the pics, or was that a happy coincidence to go down into history?
If 28 on the plate was in reference to the rumor that Paul had died
PERFECT! COULDNT DO IT ANY BETTER! DEFINATLEY
CHOSE THE RIGHT SHOT.
What a shot.This is truly history!
It is interesting that that the shot selected was of the Beatles walking away, not towards, the side of the street the Abbey Road Studios is on.
Interesting that Paul is wearing sandals in the picture on the steps. Wonder what made him decide to remove them (thus propelling all the “Paul is dead” rumors).
Reason for Paul taking his sandals off was bc it was a hot August day where his feet had become hot,& so he kicked off the sandals and walked bare footed! The question that I have is that the black topped road had to be also very hot to the bottom of his feet, wouldn’t you think so ? And the
rest is history!
Also interesting that none of the road crossing photos show John’s face clearly.
This is a very cool post! I’ve never seen any of the other photos and had no idea that there was a 10 minute time limit. Thanks!
some say there were conitations about Paul’s rumored death in the photo, I just don’t see that, just 4 guy’s walking across the street…………….
I’ve always thought the whole thing was just a visual pun. The Beatles walking across the road form a VW which echoes the VW Beetle in the background. Also the zebra crossing kind of echoes the first Volkswagen logo – give it a google. The whole 28 IF thing referring to Paul’s secret death makes no sense, he was 27 in this photo. If you must have a conspiracy theory relating to the number plate, then at least make it coherent, here’s one I invented: Lennon, McCartney, Write, 28, no. 1(songs) Fin. That was indeed the number at the time of Lennon’s death.