Mike Mitchell and the Beatles

I don't quite have my facts sorted for this next story, as I've sort of been getting glimmers of this and that from hither and yon, hearing from various people involved.

So don't take this as journalism. Take it as, er, blogging.

Here's the broad brush: one of the good guys wins one.

I'm pretty sure I've met Mike Mitchell. (Here's Mike, in a picture I think I'd better not snitch.) He was a fixture on the Washington, D.C. photography scene when I was there, and I'm almost sure he came to give a presentation to my art school class (see, I could check this, because I could email the five or six classmates I'm still in touch with and see what they remember).

Anyway, the story is that Mike took a bunch of pictures way early on in his career—he was just eighteen at the time—of the Beatles, in one of their very first U.S. appearances, at the old Washington Coliseum, in February of '64. And then he forgot about them (the pictures, I mean, not the Beatles). I'm sure in those early days everybody and his brother was taking pictures of the Beatles. What was one more kid with a camera?

Recently—I have this from a friend who was one of my teachers, and who knows Mike—Mike went through a bad divorce. He struggled mightily to keep his house, but it went into foreclosure, and he lost it, and had to move out. He then had to move to a cramped basement apartment, from which he's been struggling to put his life back together. The idea must have occurred to him when he was surveying what was left of his resources that maybe those old Beatles negs might have some value now.

I learned this next bit from a phone chat with Eric Luden, whose company Digital Silver Imaging made the prints for Mike from the Beatles negatives. Apropos our conversations a few months back about limited editions, each of Mike's Beatles pictures is an edition of one—that's right. Each print is unique. [UPDATE: This might not be right. See Hugh's "Featured Comment" below. —MJ]

Photo by Mike Mitchell

What's a matter of record is that 46 prints were auctioned off at Christie's New York store on July 20th—and realized $361,938 inclusive of commissions. Christie's had set the pre-auction estimate at $100,000, largely because Mike is considered an unknown photographer. The best price was for the print of the picture above, which went for ~$68,500. "During the bidding [Mitchell] watched wide-eyed from the audience as the prices kept rising, in some cases surpassing their estimates by a factor of ten," reported the New York Observer. "Frantically, he texted with his sister, who is in Florida. 'We were going "Wow, Wow, Wow!"'"

And one thing I know for myself—because I saw it—is that Mike made the national news the next evening. Bob Schieffer (who I also met once, in my Washingtonian days), sitting in for whoever the CBS news anchorman has been since Katie Couric left, read a feature about Mike's big sale—and didn't even mention Mike's name! Bob referred to him as "the photographer." Man, if I ever make the evening news, I hope they at least bother to name me. It's not like they're not naming their own reporters every twenty seconds. I trust Mike is consoling himself with thoughts of moving out of that basement.

You can still see the e-catalog of all the pictures at the Christie's website, although I don't know how long it will be available. Eric and his people did a great job printing them, looks like.

And finally, I was listening to Revolver as I wrote this post. I'm nothing if not detail-oriented. In some ways at least. Cheers and good going to Mike Mitchell—now, and to his 18-year-old self.

Mike
(Thanks to Mark Power)

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Original contents copyright 2011 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Featured Comment by Hugh Crawford: "Re 'each of Mike's Beatles pictures is an edition of one—that's right. Each print is unique.' That sounded so crazy that I read the auction catalogue, and on page 3 it reads 'Please note further prints may be made of the images included in this sale. They will not include the moniker embedded in each image in this collection.' Elsewhere it explains that the 'moniker' is a heart-shaped highlight embedded in each print in the sale, sort of like what I would call a watermark. The really cool thing from Mike Mitchell's point of view is that he has established a price as high as $68,500 per print for future prints as long as they do not have the embedded heart 'moniker.' So each print is an edition of one unique object, but the images themselves are not in any way a limited edition. I guess he's crazy like a fox, but presumably Christie's and Mike Mitchell's lawyers have gone over this thoroughly, and good for him I say.

Mike replies: I stand corrected. At least, I certainly hope you're right and that I stand corrected! I was literally speechless when I heard that bit about each print being unique.

Comments

[Alex Vesey]

I know nothing about concert photography, but the images look quite impressive to me. I wish Mike M. would put out a book, but if the auctioned items are one off, then I suppose that is not to be. (I wonder if he would have made more money with a publishing deal that he could control.)

Technical question: how did he make the composite images? Multiple exposures or post processing?

Alex

[John Krumm]

Thanks, that was very cool to look at. Some great photos. Looks like he paid a few bills. Interesting to see some of the same concert photography techniques I see today, but that black and white film look is wonderful here.

[Craig Beyers]

Mike -

Great story and congrats to Mike on the results of the auction. The images you showed are fascinating--the kind of pictures I'm sure every concert photographer would love to shoot. I'm also sure that the prints are magnificent. Eric's company printed one of my B&W shots (which I took at a Photoshop World pre-conference training session several years ago; http://www.photoshopuser.com/members/portfolios/view/image/169887; unfortunately, the small image in my portfolio doesn't show the quality of the print). Eric's printer printed it as an 11x14 and the print is stunning with lovely transitions between the lights and darks (the photo's not half bad either, if I say so myself ). When his staff presented the print to me, both my wife and I simply didn't know what to say because the printer did such a superb job and far exceeded our expectations. I highly recommend Digital Silver Imaging. Thanks for the blog and again, congrats to Mike (and Eric). CPB

[Bill Mitchell]

Great photos.
I wonder how an 18 year old got such access to them?

[Barb Smith]

At least he thought of them after the divorce. It will certainly now make retirement possible. Best of luck to him.

[Ben Rosengart]

On the basis of nothing at all, I think those pictures were worth millions, and Mike got ripped off.

I hope I'm wrong.

[Ben Rosengart]

I forgot to say -- the picture reproduced here is first-rate IMHO. And I'm glad this fellow made some money. I don't mean to be overly negative here.

[Ed]

On Dutch TV Mike explained that these prints were from negatives that he could not have printed analog because they were underexposed due to the lack of flash and the speed at which he had to work. So digital restoration reclaimed the value of the shots. I don't know, Ctein, but this could be an international first. Since digital restoration usually only restores emotional value (which can exceed financial value in importance by a mile).

Greetings, Ed

[m3photo]

I bet he thought to himself:

When I get older,
Losing my hair,
Many years from now.
Will I still be selling all these shots?
Maybe an auction, then I'll get lots.

Give me your answer, fill in a form
Mine for evermore
Will you still need me, will you still feed me,
When I'm sixty-four?

[Speed]

The auction house, which is paid to know such things, greatly undervalued the prints. If they had more accurately estimated their selling prices, perhaps they would have put more money and effort into promoting the sale further increasing the return to the seller.

[Crabby Umbo]

...he may have been another 18 year old with a camera, but man, he really had an 'eye' even back then. I was amazed when I first saw the images, at how good they were for a 'kid'...

RE: Bill Mitchell, hard to remember that there was a day, where if you looked like you belonged someplace, nobody would bother you, and access was pretty easy! Pre media contracts, laminated passes, and PR agents...back in the early 70's, when I was just a little kid (19-20), I used to go to concerts with a few 35mm Nikons, a white, button-down collar shirt, and a corduroy sports jacket, and marched right up to the stage and would even sit on the edge taking pictures, it was always assumed by the cops and security, that I was just another shooter from one of the papers in my town! What concert goer at the time would wear anything but jeans and a t-shirt?

A way simpler time!

[Ahem]

re: Mr Crawford's featured comment.

Is this moniker/watermark to make a print "unique" a new method? It is certainly stretching the definition of "Edition of 1" and unique, but might be a useful marketing tactic for photographers, nevertheless.

[Random Photog]

I thought there was a catch to the prints being limited to a run of one. There's a few tricks people could use to create a print that's technically unique and when I got to the part of the catalogue that mentioned the heart shaped highlight it became obvious.

Clever and wise are not the same thing. It's this sort of "cleverness" that makes the world more complicated than it needs to be, mostly, so people can show how powerful they are or make money. But we know how that ends don't we?

I read today that a US court found someone not guilty for making casual online threats to kill President Obama. A victory for free speech? Tell that to the UK disabled and the victims of the Oslo attacks. That is what politicians creating a climate of cleverness and greed gets you.

Mike Mitchell's example has let the genie out of the bottle and will create a market of copycats. Like a slow burning fuse leading to a crate of dynamite the limited edition and the value it brings to the market has been effectively destroyed. It will go bang. The only question is when.

[Bob Rosinsky]

I find it baffling that a self-portrait of Cindy Sherman sold for $3MM while the complete series of Mitchell's archivally printed 1/1 special edition b&w photos sold for about 10% of that. Go figure.

[mike plews]

All you need is love but three hundred big ones ain't too bad either when you're tapped out.
I think I'll go downstairs and pull out Revolver on vinyl and kick back for some Sunday tunes. Nice call on the soundtrack Mike.

[Anonymous]

"Anyway, the story is that Mike took a bunch of pictures way early on in his career—he was just eighteen at the time—of the Beatles, in one of their very first U.S. appearances, at the old Washington Coliseum, in February of '64."

When I saw Paul McCartney's most recent (I believe) concert in Washington DC about 2-3 summers ago, his stage banter included the remark that while their '64 show in NYC got all the attention, their first actual concert in America was in Washington. So the photos by Mike Mitchell may include the very first Beatles show in the US (and not just one of the first). Just thought that was interesting.

[David Dyer-Bennet]

The example photo you show looks a bit like it might be one of those that needed digital to come along before it could be printed. But I'm looking at an online image of a good print, not the original negative, so I don't really know. (Also, it remains true that there were people who were a LOT better B&W darkroom printers than me; I was "pretty decent", not "a master", so maybe they could have even if I couldn't).

So, possibly, he HAD to wait nearly this long to realize anything from the prints.

The gimmickry about the editioning sounds like it may be very very clever.

Damn it, I can't view the catalog. Dunno what's wrong; Christie's sends me off to some third-party site, which doesn't work. It incorrectly decides I don't have Flash installed, and refuses to try to run. Since I do have Flash installed, and unblocked for the damned third-party site, I can't figure out what to do to try to get in.

[RobG]

Call me a cynic, but well.. just call me a cynic.

Best band in the world, ever, BTW.

[David Dyer-Bennet]

Since the "limited edition" is essentially always a gimmick (certainly every one I see in person) convention (for photography in particular and digital prints in general), I can only hope that "Random Photog" is right that this, or something, will finally blow it up.

[Steve Rosenbach]

As a crazy Beatles fan, when I saw a headline about "Never-seen before photos..." I was quite excited. But when I saw the actual photos, it was a let-down - as Beatles photos go, they quite good, but don't look much different than any number of shots that I've already seen.

On the other hand, I'm delighted that Mike Mitchell was able to profit so nicely from these photos!