It was a grey day when Nic and I visited Knole Park, in Sevenoaks, Kent, but there were two things on the agenda. She wanted to photograph the deer in the park; my interest was in The Beatles.
It is 50 years to the day since shooting took place for the video of Strawberry Fields Forever, and I wanted to find the precise location. The tree, no longer there, was already dead when Swedish director Peter Goldmann chose it to be part of the strange musical instrument that features in the film.
It was reportedly blown down in the storm of 1987, and its original location is now disputed. However, lining-up land features in the distance with the original footage - and the proximity of a road that runs through the park, just visible in front of the trees in the middle distance - leads me to believe that this is, indeed, the right place. It's not much to look at now, but it appears that the stump in the right foreground is all that remains of the oak.
The B side (in fact it was a double A-sided single), of the release was Penny Lane, and footage was shot the following day to accompany the music. Again, the area near The Birdhouse in the park was used as a location. In the images above the arch that the band rode through on horseback can still be seen, while the pond where the banquet table was situated still looks very much like it did on that winter's day in 1967.
12-24mm f/4 AF-S Nikkor. Matrix metering. ISO 200
Top: 1/200 second at f/8.
Middle: 1/250 second at f/8
Bottom: 1/250 second at f/8
© 2017
