The Beatles album covers of both 1962–1966 (Red) and 1967–1970 (Blue) showed The Beatles looking down from a stairwell at EMI’s Manchester Square headquarters in London. They used pretty much the same pose, camera angle, setting and photographer (Angus McBean).
The earlier photo used for the “Red Album” was taken in 1963 and produced the photo that was used on their first album, Please Please Me.
1963
The later photo used for the “Blue Album” was taken in 1969 and produced the photo originally intended for The Beatles Get Back album. The Get Back album was shelved and eventually became Let It Be so the stairwell photo was only used for the Get Back single.
1969
Here’s some cool photos of The Beatles with George Martin the day of the first photo shoot in front of the EMI House balcony.
The building is located at 20 Manchester Square London W1U, UK. This is what it looked liked when The Beatles took their album cover photos.
It has since gone through renovation and now looks like this.
