The Beatles iconic “Abbey Road” album cover photograph was taken on August 8, 1969 by photographer Iain Macmillan.

Macmillan was given only a ten minute window at about 11:30 AM to snap a photo of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr crossing the street at Abbey Road. That cover photograph has since become one of the most famous and most imitated album covers in recording history.

Iain took six shots of The Beatles crossing the street that day, five of which he still retains the rights over, the album cover negative rights is held by EMI. Here are two of the five out-takes from the session…

The other photos that exist were taken by Linda McCartney. Here are some of the alternate out-take photos taken that day before and during the photo shoot…

Here’s some photos of The Beatles sitting on the steps of EMI Abbey Road Studios waiting for the photo session to start..

This unseen photo below taken by Linda McCartney of Paul & Ringo from the Abbey Road photo sesssion was just released by paulmccartney.com on May 10, 2012.

Here’s a few more of the boys waiting to cross the street.

This one is amazing. It looks so amazing that it authenticity has been called into question. Click on the photo for the Hi-Res version.

Here’s a collage of all the other photo’s taken that day.

Click below to check out the Abbey Road crossing right now…