Photo shoot: John Lennon and Yoko Ono for Rolling Stone

John Lennon and Yoko Ono were photographed by Annie Leibovitz for Rolling Stone magazine on 3 December 1980.

It took place at the Dakota Building, almost 10 years to the day since Leibovitz had previously photographed the couple.

It’s been like a reunion for us these last few weeks. We’ve seen Ethan Russell, who’s doing a videotape of a couple of the new songs, and Annie Leibovitz was here. She took my first Rolling Stone cover photo. It’s been fun seeing everyone we used to know and doing it all again – we’ve all survived.

The session began in kitchen of Lennon and Ono’s apartment. In the mid afternoon it moved into the master bedroom, where Leibovitz took images of Lennon on the bed playing playing his Fender Stratocaster guitar. The candy apple red instrument with 22 carat gold plated hardware had been acquired by Lennon earlier in 1980.

In late 1980, Rolling Stone had another cover with John coming up so I got my second chance to photograph him. But I was told that Jann [Wenner, editor] didn’t want Yoko on the cover. There was still some animosity in the air over how the Beatles had broken up and if Yoko was part of that. I had gone earlier to the Dakota to take some pictures of John and Yoko around the apartment. From that first session on December 3, I got a sense of what was happening with them. I knew they were working on a video where John and Yoko were making love. I was very fascinated by that. I also remember seeing the cover to Double Fantasy, which was the kiss, and I was really enamored with it. So I was placing all that information in my head. In 1980 it felt like romance was dead. I remember thinking how simple and beautiful that kiss was and I was inspired by it.

Leibovitz photographed Lennon and Ono again on 8 December 1980.