Robert Freeman (photographer)
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Robert Freeman is a celebrated photographer famous for his album cover photos for the The Beatles.
He was The Beatles' official photographer from 1963 to 1966[1]. Freeman came to prominence for working on the first Pirelli Calendar and for photographing Khrushchev in the Kremlin. His black-and-white photos of the jazz-legend John Coltrane that brought him to the Beatles' attention.
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[edit] Early career
Robert Freeman graduated from Cambridge in 1959[2]. "...In the summer of '63. I'd been a photographer for two years but had already established a reputation through my work for the Sunday Times and other magazines. I'd recently been on assignment in Moscow to photograph Khrushchev in the Kremlin, and earlier that year had shot the first Pirelli calendar. This was a big hit and, in later years, a media event. But my favourite assignment during that period was photographing John Coltrane and other jazz musicians at a festival in London. It was photographs of these musicians that I later showed to the Beatles...I contacted their press agent in London. He referred me to Brian Epstein, their manager, who asked me to send samples of my work to Llandudno, in Wales, where the Beatles were playing at the time. I put together a portfolio of large black-and-white prints, most of which were portraits of jazz musicians - Cannonball Adderley, Dizzy Gillespie, Elvin Jones, Coleman Hawkins and John Coltrane. The Beatles' response was positive - they liked the photographs and, as a result, Brian arranged for me to meet them in Bournemouth a week later where they were booked to play several evenings at the local Gaumont cinema." [3]
[edit] Famous photographs
[edit] With the Beatles cover
The cover for With the Beatles was shot by Freeman on 22 August 1963 in the Palace Court Hotel, Bournemouth, England [4]. The style of this photo was heavily influenced by that of the b/w photos made of The Beatles while in Hamburg, Germany by Astrid Kirchherr. Lennon and McCartney gave Freeman a couple of those photos and told him that that was the style they wanted. Paul McCartney remembered:
| “ | He arranged us in a hotel corridor: it was very un-studio-like. The corridor was very dark, and there was a window at the end, and by using this heavy source of natural light coming from the right, he got that very moody picture which most people think he must have worked at forever and ever. But it was only an hour. He sat down, took a couple of rolls, and that was it. | ” |
Freeman himself recalled:
| “ | They had to fit in the square format of the cover, so rather than have them all in a line, I put Ringo in the bottom right corner, since he was the last to join the group. He was also the shortest. | ” |
The original idea was to paint the picture from edge to edge, with no bleeding or title, but the studio vetoed it, on the grounds that the Beatles were not yet famous enough to carry a nameless cover. (The first album to carry an edge-to-edge cover was the Rolling Stones' self-titled debut, released a few months later.) The studio also tried to pull the cover because the Beatles were not smiling, and it was only after George Martin intervened that they won the day. Freeman was eventually paid £75 for his work (three times the normal fee).
[edit] Beatles for Sale cover
The album cover for Beatles for Sale shows the Beatles in an autumn scene photographed at Hyde Park, London. McCartney recalled: "The album cover was rather nice: Robert Freeman's photos. It was easy. We did a session lasting a couple of hours and had some reasonable pictures to use.... The photographer would always be able to say to us, 'Just show up,' because we all wore the same kind of gear all the time. Black stuff; white shirts and big black scarves."
The album also features a gatefold cover, the photo inside the gatefold cover showed the Beatles standing in front of a montage of photos, which some have assumed was the source of inspiration for the cover of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band".
[edit] Help! cover
The Help album cover features the group spelling out a word in semaphore; the British Parlophone release featured the word 'NUJV', whilst the slightly re-arranged US release on Capitol Records appeared to feature the word 'NVUJ'. However, it may be argued that some of the members of the band were not only re-arranged but reversed as well.
The following semaphore characters show the correct spelling of "HELP" as seen if facing the flagman:
 H |
 E |
 L |
 P |
However, the truth is the photo does not spell any message at all in semaphore. Robert Freeman confirms this: "I had the idea of semaphore spelling out the letters HELP. But when we came to do the shot the arrangement of the arms with those letters didn't look good. So we decided to improvise and ended up with the best graphic positioning of the arms."[5]
[edit] Rubber Soul Cover
The photo of the Beatles on the Rubber Soul cover appears stretched. McCartney relates the story behind this in Volume 5 of the documentary film Anthology. Photographer Bob Freeman had taken some pictures of the Beatles at Lennon's house. Freeman showed the photos to the Beatles by projecting them onto an album-sized piece of cardboard to simulate how they would appear on an album cover. The unusual Rubber Soul album cover came to be when the slide card fell slightly backwards, elongating the projected image of the photograph and stretching it. Excited by the effect, they shouted, "Ah! Can we have that? Can you do it like that?" Freeman said he could.
The lettering was designed by Charles Front.
[edit] Publications
- Freeman, Robert The Beatles: A Private View Barnes & Noble, NY, ISBN 1-59226-176-0
[edit] References
- ^ Epinions.com review. Retrieved on 2007-09-24.[1]
- ^ Freeman, Robert (1990). The Beatles, A Private View. Barnes & Noble, 176. ISBN 1-56619-650-7.
- ^ Freeman, Robert (1990). The Beatles, A Private View. Barnes & Noble, 8-9. ISBN 1-56619-650-7.
- ^ Lewisohn, Mark (1996). The Complete Beatles Chronicle. Chancellor Press. ISBN 0-7607-0327-2.
- ^ Freeman, Robert (1990). The Beatles, A Private View. Barnes & Noble, 62. ISBN 1-56619-650-7.
