![Интервью Пола Маккартни о фотографе Ангусе Макбине. (из книги «Angus Mcbean: Portraits»]( "Интервью Пола Маккартни о фотографе Ангусе Макбине. (из книги «Angus Mcbean: Portraits»")
Интервью Пола Маккартни о фотографе Ангусе Макбине. (из книги «Angus Mcbean: Portraits»
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http://www.amazon.com/Angus-Mcbean-Portraits-Terence-Pepper/dp/158093174X/ref=sr_1_5?s=...Angus McBean is perhaps best known today for his photographs of the Beatles leaning over a balcony. Here, Sir Paul McCartney talks to Curator Terence Pepper about his experiences of bеing photographed by McBean in 1963 and 1969.
When you first visited Angus McBean's studio in Endell Street, Covent Garden, in January 1963 to be photographed formally, did you know much about him as a photographer (for example, his theatre work or record covers for Cliff Richard's first albums, the Shadows, Shirley Bassey, Danny Williams, Helen Shapiro and Peter Sellers’ rather weird Songs for Swinging Sellers)?
We knew nothing about his previous works but he struck us as a very amiable, slightly eccentric kind of guy.
McBean later wrote that this first session was something of a failures but the results did appear on your first EP The Beatles' Hits and on your first American album released by Vee lay Records, Introducing the Beatles, as well as on the cover of a re-release of Love Me Do in the 1980s and in The Beatles Anthology. You appear to be wearing pink-and while checked shirts and brown suits. Who chose these particular outfits?
Lord knows!
Did you have any say in the choice or use of this image and its variants?
We didn't get involved at that time - we were too busy with other things.
The most famous session, of course, is the one used on the cover of Please Please Me, taken in February 1963. Do you remember how it all happened?
We showed up at EMI's headquarters in Manchester Square and agreed to Angus s idea to use the stairwell and basically did what he said.
Dezo Hoffman had also photographed you for the album cover on 11 February 1963 on the steps outside Abbey Road Studios. Who would have decided to go to McBean again? I suppose that EMI would have preferred a colour shot. McBean talked about being driven by his assistant David Ball to Manchester Square, squashed together with you all in a car. but this sounds unlikely.
I don't see why not. I can't realty remember really how we got there. This is quite possibly true, but we had w many photo sessions at that time that the details of any one might have been difficult to recall even the week after...
Apart from photographs taken by Dick Matthews in Liverpool and Astrid Kirchherr in Hamburg, and the audition photographs taken at Abbey Road in June 1962, McBean's colour studio shots must have been the first taken by a London-based professional photographer. Was it still a novelty then, before Beatlemania became overwhelming?
It was always a pleasure to do something a little different and a photo session with Angus was just that. He had a lively wit and an artistic bent, which was fun to be around.
How strongly did you feel about the groups image? I know you were very keen (o embrace Robert Freeman's approach, starting with his brilliant work and concept for the cover for With The Beatles.
As time went on, we began to have more and more say in our overall image, and even from the beginning we chose what we would wear and therefore were quite closely involved.
By 1969 you had sat to some of the world's greatest photographers, such as Richard Avedon. Is there the ultimate Beatle photograph that you feel the National Portrait Gallery should have?
Perhaps the psychedelic set that Avedon took at that time, or Michael Cooper's Sgt Pepper cover or Robert Freeman's half-lit faces for the cover of Meet The Beatles.
Whose idea was it to restage Please Please Me for the proposed Get Back album, the image that eventually appeared on the 'Red Album' and 'Blue Album' compilations, and which helped confirm McBean's place in pop photography history?
It was decided in a group meeting and I can't quite remember who brought it up but we all decided it was a fun and 'fill circle' idea.
Thank you so much for your time and trouble.
Sir Paul McCartney answered questions from Terence Pepper in February 2006 in advance of the National Portrait Gallery exhibition Angus McBean. Portraits and the accompanying display The Beatles on the Balcony, including ten works by Linda McCartney.
