Picture This

"When I take a picture I take 10 percent of what I see." ~Annie Leibovitz

A famous photograph from the cover of a very famous musical album, The Beatles "Abbey Road" was released in September of 1969. The interesting thing about the photograph by Iain Macmillan is that so much more is behind the picture itself.

A total of six pictures were taken over the course of ten minutes from which only the one was chosen. In an article on Wikipedia, the six photographs are described as such;

• First Photo: John leads the group from left to right followed by Ringo, Paul and George. They kept this order throughout all the photos. There is a Mercedes pulling out of the studio behind them. John is looking away from the camera and Paul and George are in mid step. Paul is wearing sandals
• Second Photo: They walk back in the same order. Good spacing but only John has a full step.
• Third Photo: Left to right again, full steps this time but they are all too far left. There is now a traffic backup. There is a taxi, two vans and a double decker bus waiting to come forward. Paul is now barefoot.
• Fourth Photo: Walking right to left, once again Paul Ringo and George all in mid step. The traffic has gone through but the bus has stopped to watch. This photo is the cover of Abbey Road by Brian Southall.
• Fifth Photo: This photo was used for the cover of the album and is the only photo where we see Paul smoking. The only one with their legs in perfect formation. The three men on the left above Paul's head are Alan Flanagan, Steve Millwood and Derek Seagrove. They were interior decorators returning from a lunch break. On the right side between John and Ringo's head is Paul Cole an American tourist.
• Sixth Photo: Ringo slightly too far behind John.

The interesting thing is that there is always more to the story behind what we see at first.

While we look at the snapshot in time, so much more was happening to lead up to the picture we see. And so much more happens after the moment in time. The second picture is of the "Fab Four" waiting in between pictures. The final product only tells part of the story.

When we take a look at other people's lives and make a judgement, many times we are only seeing part of the story. We are seeing only 10 percent of their life while leaving out a large portion of what brought that person to this point in time. Many times the rest of the story can change dramatically how we perceive someone's life. And if we are judging people on snapshots in time, then maybe others are judging us by only snapshots of our own lives.

Look beyond the picture we see and understand more of the story. You may find something a lot more interesting then the picture itself.