In the wake of Peter Jackson’s game-changing Get Back movie, The Press shares these rarely seen images of The Beatles taken from a roll of film in Yoko Ono’s stolen Instamatic camera – all care of Award Winning Author and Something About The Beatles podcaster Robert Rodriguez.
This photo capturing John Lennon and Paul McCartney was taken on July 20, 1969, after the first draft screening of the film that became Let It Be, although it didn’t get that name until later that year. That’s Michael Lindsay-Hogg in the photo next to Linda. The film was Lindsay-Hogg’s cut, originally between two and two-and-a-half hours long, eventually cut down to remove much of the John and Yoko footage.
It is one of several colour photos that came from a roll of film in Yoko Ono’s Instamatic camera that was stolen. The images on the roll surfaced in 2013 and included several shots of The Beatles working on the Abbey Road album, as well as a few taken at the screening of what would become the Let It Be movie, showing all four Beatles plus George’s parents and his wife Pattie.
This shot of John and Paul singing together at the mic in 1969 during the Abbey Road sessions and was also taken by Yoko (that’s her feet!), from her in-studio bed! Now that’s something I didn’t see a lot of in Get Back, HEADPHONES!
Yoko had been injured in a family car crash in Scotland, so on Doctor’s orders John had a Harrods double bed placed in the corner of the group’s studio at Abbey Road. What a guy!
There were no known photos taken of the “Ballad of John and Yoko” session, though funnily enough there are a few taken days later at the tracking of George’s “Old Brown Shoe,” showing John (whose instrumental contribution was later wiped) and George. As for Yoko’s role, the film screening shots are definitely tied to July 20 – the very day of the Apollo 11 lunar landing (which George watched with his father that night at Kinfauns), while the EMI session shots are believed to be within the next couple of days, specifically when John and Paul tracked the vocals to “Come Together,” belying Paul’s later claim that he was too embarrassed to ask if he could sing harmony on it.
Side note: there may be reason to think even more session photos exist, given the 2019 release from Harrison estate of a photo taken at the January 1970 “I Me Mine” session showing George and Paul on guitars, followed by several more which also depicted Linda. Seems like every time you think you’ve seen/heard it all, something else emerges! – Robert Rodriguez 2022
Paul, George Martin, engineer Phil McDonald and John
John & Paul
Pattie, Mal Evans, Linda & Yoko
References:
♥ Robert Rodriguez – Something About The Beatles
♥ BBC News
THE PRESS | Music Reviews 
amazing shots !
They certainly are. And a few I’ve never seen before.
Brillant!!
Thanks for stopping by MSW.
my pleasure “Press Music Reviews!!”
Great! Pictures of them we have never seen are rare…I also like the fact they are not pro pictures…it’s like your Aunt Mabel was taking pictures at a family event. They seem more real. Thanks for sharing.
Yes, ‘rare’ is a bit of a stretch, more rarely seen. They do seem very real and very much like family photos. Thanks for reading and commenting bf.
It’s always more interesting and fun to see candid shots like these.
Absolutely Jeff, very much home movie type stuff isn’t it. thanks for checking in.
Wow!