Wednesday 1 May 2013

Get a photo crossing Abbey Rd

What can I say? This photo/album is my earliest memory and influenced the course of my life in so many ways from dancing around the lounge room with Dad to "Octopus's Garden" and "Come Together" as a child, up to today.

I walked the 3Km from my hotel listening to the Beatles on the MP3, even I was surprised at the rush of rising excitement as I got closer.

The first thing I saw was about thirty people running onto and across the road with cameras and mostly patient drivers rolling their eyes as they had to stop for these crazy tourists doing their reenactments.

At one point I was poised to grab a 2yo girl who wobbled off the sidewalk into oncoming traffic as the young mother was busy standing on the road taking photos of friends oblivious to her child's impending doom. Luckily the traffic stopped as someone beat me to it. The local council is talking about removing the crossing because of the danger and inconvenience to traffic. There was 18 accidents in the eighties, 18 in the nineties and 22 since 2000 but no deaths.

I stood smiling and watching for about half an hour just soaking it up and taking in all the changes and unseen details surrounding the original album cover and sussing out the various tourists for a potential photographer prepared to indulge me ten minutes of their time.

Their names were Dan and Shannon, a couple of cool local musos. Dan used my iPhone and Shannon very generously also took photos on her iPad and emailed them to me.

I did two crossings as Lennon with hands in pockets then two crossings as Paul barefoot with a cigarette. It was tricky to cross with no cars obscuring me, when no one else was getting in my shot and avoiding the traffic at the same time. At one point a car came screaming at me beeping its horn but I held my composure, if I was going to get hit by a car then this would be a great place for it to happen.

A great feeling just to see the famous crossing at last and a humbling experience to get a photo and cross it off the LIFE LIST.

I checked out the studio as well of course from the outside, smaller than I imagined.