Cover photoshoot: Venus And Mars by Wings

The front cover photography for Wings’ fourth album Venus And Mars was taken on 18 March 1975.

The shoot took place in a photography studio on West 3rd Street and Crescent Heights Boulevard in Los Angeles. It had been arranged by Aubrey Powell of Hipgnosis, although the concept of yellow and red billiard balls had been settled on by the McCartneys for several weeks.

Powell’s LA fixer Jeff Smith picked up Linda McCartney from the Wally Heider Recording studio at 4pm and drove her to the studio.

I got the whole thing together – the pool table and the balls – and I wanted to shoot it on a five-by-four camera, which Linda was not familiar with because she normally shot on a 35mm Nikon, or something like that. I said, ‘No, no, we have to have better quality than that.’ I lit it all for her, she came in, she fired off some shots and that was it.

The inner gatefold photograph of Wings was taken on 23 March 1975.