Great Album-Cover Photography
Ten minutes on a stepladder, a freezing street in the Village, a bass being destroyed — how the twelve-inch square produced its own photographic tradition.
The great album-cover photographs are mostly quick, single frames: Iain Macmillan's ten minutes on a stepladder for Abbey Road in 1969, Don Hunstein's freezing Greenwich Village street shot for The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, Pennie Smith's out-of-focus bass-smashing for London Calling. The twelve-inch square jacket is what turned them into a tradition.
The square made the pictures
Until 1939, records came in plain brown paper. That year Columbia hired a 23-year-old designer named Alex Steinweiss as its first art director, and he began putting designed covers on record albums. Sales, by every account of the period, rose sharply. When Columbia introduced the twelve-inch long-playing record in 1948, the designed sleeve came with it — and photographers inherited a frame with unusual rules.
It is square, roughly a foot on each side. Nothing else in commercial photography of the period was square at that size, so the standard newspaper and magazine crops were useless. It is also held at arm's length in a shop and then stared at for forty minutes while the record plays, which is a completely different attention span from a magazine page. And the type has to live inside the picture, because there is no margin to put it in.
The result is a body of work with distinctive habits: centered subjects, generous dead space at the top for a title, faces cropped hard, and a preference for one clear idea over a complicated one. Browse album cover art and the format is immediately legible even when the record is unfamiliar.
Five photographs that became the record
Abbey Road (1969). Iain Macmillan, a Scottish photographer suggested by Yoko Ono, stood on a stepladder in the middle of the road on August 8, 1969 while a policeman held the traffic. He had about ten minutes and shot six frames. The fifth was chosen because it was the only one in which all four Beatles were in step. McCartney is barefoot, which launched a decade of conspiracy theory.
The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963). Columbia staff photographer Don Hunstein took Dylan and Suze Rotolo out onto Jones Street off West 4th in Greenwich Village on a bitterly cold February day. They are hunched into each other for warmth, and the picture accidentally documents an entire neighborhood at a moment it was about to stop existing.
At Folsom Prison (1968). Jim Marshall photographed Johnny Cash's prison concerts from inside the room rather than from a press pen. The following year at San Quentin he asked Cash to do one for the warden, and got the raised middle finger that became the most reproduced photograph of the man.
London Calling (1979). Pennie Smith caught Paul Simonon destroying his bass at the Palladium in New York on September 21, 1979. She argued against using it, on the grounds that it was out of focus. Joe Strummer overruled her. Ray Lowry then set the title in pink and green lettering copied directly from Elvis Presley's 1956 debut album.
Nevermind (1991). Kirk Weddle shot a four-month-old baby underwater in a swimming pool; the dollar bill on a fishhook was composited in afterward.
Nine covers and the people who shot them
| Album | Year | Photographer | The fact |
|---|---|---|---|
| Elvis Presley | 1956 | William “Red” Robertson | Shot in Tampa in July 1955; the type was pastiched by The Clash |
| Kind of Blue | 1959 | Jay Maisel | Miles Davis at rest between takes, not playing |
| The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan | 1963 | Don Hunstein | Jones Street, Greenwich Village, in February |
| At Folsom Prison | 1968 | Jim Marshall | Shot from inside the room, not from a press position |
| Abbey Road | 1969 | Iain Macmillan | Six frames in ten minutes; the fifth was the only one in step |
| Ziggy Stardust | 1972 | Brian Ward | Black and white, shot on Heddon Street, then hand-colored |
| Wish You Were Here | 1975 | Hipgnosis | A stuntman in a fire suit on the Warner Bros lot |
| London Calling | 1979 | Pennie Smith | She argued against it; Strummer insisted |
| Nevermind | 1991 | Kirk Weddle | Shot underwater; the dollar bill was added later |
The Ziggy Stardust entry is a useful reminder that the color in many famous covers is not photographic. Brian Ward shot Bowie in monochrome under a lamp on Heddon Street in London on a wet January night, and Terry Pastor hand-colored the print afterward with an airbrush.
Blue Note: the most coherent run in the format
No label used photography as consistently as Blue Note did between 1956 and 1967. The system had two people in it. Francis Wolff, who had co-founded the label with Alfred Lion after both fled Nazi Germany, photographed nearly every recording session — musicians in the studio, cigarettes, headphones, mid-phrase concentration, all lit by whatever was already there.
Reid Miles then designed roughly five hundred covers from that material. He cropped Wolff's frames brutally, printed them in one or two colors rather than full color, tilted them, ran them off the edge, and gave the remaining space to enormous typography. Miles was reportedly indifferent to jazz and often worked without listening to the record, which may be exactly why the covers look designed rather than illustrated.
The reason those sleeves still get copied — by coffee brands, by streaming playlists, by everyone — is that the combination is rare: documentary photographs of people actually working, handled with the discipline of a poster. See Miles Davis and music photography generally for the same tradition.
Hipgnosis, and the photograph that is built rather than found
The opposite approach also produced classics. Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell, working as Hipgnosis, made covers by constructing a scene in front of the camera and photographing it straight, with no darkroom trickery where they could avoid it.
For Wish You Were Here (1975) they put two businessmen on the Warner Bros back lot in Burbank and set one of them on fire — a stuntman in a protective suit under the clothes. The wind changed direction and caught his mustache, and the frame they eventually used was flipped, which is why the handshake looks slightly wrong.
For Animals (1977) they floated a forty-foot inflatable pig over Battersea Power Station. On the second day of shooting it broke its mooring, climbed into Heathrow's approach path and grounded flights before coming down in Kent. The pig on the finished sleeve was composited from a different day's photograph of the building.
Both are photographs in the strict sense and stunts in every other sense, and they mark the point where the album cover stopped documenting the musician altogether.
Frequently asked questions
Who photographed the Abbey Road album cover?
Iain Macmillan, a Scottish photographer recommended by Yoko Ono. He shot it on August 8, 1969 from a stepladder in the middle of the road while a policeman held up traffic, taking six frames in roughly ten minutes. The fifth was chosen because it was the only one in which all four Beatles were in step.
Who is the woman on the cover of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan?
Suze Rotolo, Dylan's girlfriend at the time. Columbia staff photographer Don Hunstein made the picture on Jones Street off West 4th in Greenwich Village in February 1963, on a day cold enough that the two of them are visibly huddled together for warmth.
Who took the London Calling cover photograph?
Pennie Smith, who photographed Paul Simonon smashing his bass on stage at the Palladium in New York on September 21, 1979. She objected to the image being used because it was out of focus; Joe Strummer insisted. The lettering, by Ray Lowry, copies the pink and green type from Elvis Presley's 1956 debut album.
Who photographed the Blue Note album covers?
Francis Wolff, who co-founded Blue Note with Alfred Lion, shot almost every recording session for the label. Reid Miles designed roughly five hundred covers from Wolff's photographs between 1956 and 1967, cropping them hard, printing them in one or two colors and pairing them with oversized typography.
Was the burning man on Wish You Were Here really on fire?
Yes. Hipgnosis used a stuntman in a fire-protective suit worn under the business clothes, photographed on the Warner Bros back lot in Burbank in 1975. The wind shifted during the shoot and set his mustache alight. The frame finally used was reversed, which is why the handshake reads slightly oddly.
Can you buy prints of famous album-cover photographs?
Some, through licensed channels. Album photography is in copyright, usually held by the photographer's estate or the label, so authorised prints come through licensed collections rather than open image files. Fine Art America carries album-cover and music photography on that basis, along with a large body of concert photography.
Album photography hangs well because it was composed square and meant to be looked at for a long time. Browse album cover art, music photography and concert photography, or a single artist such as the Beatles, Johnny Cash or the Rolling Stones. A square print at 30 or 36 inches recreates the original proportions at four times the scale.
