Beatles auction nets photographer quarter million euros

Unpublished photos of The Beatles have fetched more than 250,000 euros at auction in New York. The man who took the shots of the Fab Four’s first concerts in America in 1964 put 50 of them on the block at Christie’s.

The band’s appearances in Washington and Baltimore were captured by a then 18-year-old photographer. Mike Mitchell was expecting about 2,000 euros for a snap of the group’s backs, but in the end, it went for a shade over 48,000 euros.

Mitchell said: “When I took that photo I don’t think I even knew it. I didn’t even remember it until I cracked into the negatives five or six years ago. It had been overlooked because it was so underexposed that with traditional photographic methods it could never have been printed. I could resurrect it because of digital technology.”

Mitchell had labelled the negatives ‘Beedles’, with a ‘d’, and then forgot them. Now he is mostly an art photographer.

Copyright © 2012 euronews