Process


Once the artefact is selected for relevance to the project’s aims and its association to an iconic recording artist and track, it is placed in an environment that removes all context, allowing the viewer to focus entirely on it.


The artefact is lit with a single sharp light source, designed specifically to give contrast and in doing so reveals every mark, every scratch and every detail. The artefact’s life is literally carved into its surface, every mark the result of its use, physical evidence that directly connects us to the some of the world’s most astonishing recording sessions.


To achieve this takes hours of painstaking work, with each final image being a composite of up to 100 separate images, often more. The artefact is photographed by being sliced into a series of pin sharp, high resolution, ultra-fine layers, that are then composited in post-production

Legacy + Art


Legacy+Art are Rick Guest, Matthew Akehurst and Anna Bergfors. Legacy+Art believes that every object carries with it the story of its use, and that the precise revelation of both patina and materiality can transport the viewer viscerally to those stories and, in this case, directly to the most era-defining, iconic music ever recorded at the moment it was created.


Lead photographer Rick Guest approaches our subjects with both the meticulous eye of a scientist and the visual acuity of an artist, shaping Legacy+Art’s typological viewpoint. Our aim is to reveal, to emotively connect the viewer to the acts that the object has borne witness to, to transport the viewer to the iconic moment of creation itself.


Legacy+Art specialises in photographing objects and collections for both private collectors and institutions, from artefacts as far ranging as Charles Darwin’s walking cane to the stopwatch that timed Sir Roger Bannister’s sub four-minute mile, from Steve McQueen’s racing helmet to Charles Dickens’ quill, from collections of guitars to Ferraris, from personal possessions of antecedents to stables of racehorses.


Legacy+Art has photographed artefacts in various institutions, including The Science Museum, The Scott Polar Research Institute, The Wellcome Collection, The Alpine Club, The National Maritime Museum, The Worshipful Guild of Clockmakers, The National Motoring Museum, The Dundee Heritage Trust, The Diving Museum, The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards Museum, The Explorer’s Club in NY and Abbey Road Studios, amongst many others.


Discover more at: www.legacyandart.com

Abbey Road Studios


A global music icon and the world’s first purpose-built recording studio, Abbey Road Studios has been home to countless landmark recordings and pioneering advances in music technology for over 90 years.


The studios’ phenomenal history encompasses celebrated work by artists from The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Fela Kuti, Kate Bush, Oasis and Radiohead to Sam Smith, Florence + The Machine, Lady Gaga, Frank Ocean, Amy Winehouse, Brockhampton, Adele and Little Simz as well as scores to films from Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Lord of the Rings trilogy and many of the Harry Potter and Star Wars movies, to Gravity, The Shape of Water, 1917, Black Panther, Bohemian Rhapsody, Avengers: Endgame and Tár.


Since stereo was patented at Abbey Road in 1933, the studios have been home to numerous innovations in recording technology and continue to innovate today with Europe’s first music tech incubator, Abbey Road Red.


Discover more at www.abbeyroad.com.