Unseen photos from 'Music, Music, Music'

[A&M Retro]

Came across these last night and they're pretty incredible! Scroll through 'Carpenters' and you'll find them all. Enjoy!

Karen Carpenter, The Carpenters performing on the ABC tv special 'The...

Karen Carpenter, The Carpenters performing on the ABC tv special 'The Carpenters: Music, Music, Music'.

www.gettyimages.dk

 

[newvillefan]

Here’s a link to the photos from the TV special. Almost all of these are new to me.

Karen Carpenter 1980 Tv Special Pictures and Photos - Getty Images

View and license Karen Carpenter 1980 Tv Special pictures & news photos from Getty Images.

www.gettyimages.dk

 

[Rick-An Ordinary Fool]

To be honest, I didn’t think any of them were all that great. It’s like they decided to take action shots and call it a day. I mean some have her eyes closed, huh? They don’t look professional to me. Look like screen grabs from a video in 480p. There are a few that are nice though.

 

[newvillefan]

Look like screen grabs from a video in 480p.

If that is what they are, I’d love to see this copy of the special because these are pretty good quality compared to what’s current available.

 

[A&M Retro]

To each his own, but I think they're FAR clearer than what we've seen in the past. I'm sure they were all taken for promotional photos when it was time to advertise the special at a later date Not all of them were good enough for release, but it certainly gives us a different perspective on what went on during the taping of the special.

 

[newvillefan]

I'm sure they were all taken for promotional photos when it was time to advertise the special at a later date Not all of them were good enough for release, but it certainly gives us a different perspective on what went on during the taping of the special.

That’s right - photoshoots for events like this can run into hundreds of photos if the photographer is just hanging around snapping as many shots as possible from different angles. Lots of these photos are from angles that aren’t captured by the TV cameras, which makes me think that’s the case.

Most images in such a roll would never be suitable for official release, but it’s great to see these. I’m amazed that there seems to be a slow but steady stream of new material that continues to surface, 50 years on. It’s amazing really. If these were all taken by a photographer who attended the filming, I’d bet that Richard also has copies of all the negatives in his archive.

 

[Rick-An Ordinary Fool]

I would suspect if you pay for the prints they will be much clearer. The online ones look like lower quality.

 

[Chris May]

I scanned a number of outtakes from the archive slides at Richard's house, none of which I see here, and they are outstanding quality.

 

[Vinylalbumcovers]

To be honest, I didn’t think any of them were all that great. It’s like they decided to take action shots and call it a day. I mean some have her eyes closed, huh? They don’t look professional to me. Look like screen grabs from a video in 480p. There are a few that are nice though.

This is Getty; they don't do things like that. They're just a bunch of miscellaneous shots with the photog looking for a moment that might not be noticed on first blush. Interesting shots in some cases but a lot of dross too.

Ed

 

[tomswift2002]

To be honest, I didn’t think any of them were all that great. It’s like they decided to take action shots and call it a day. I mean some have her eyes closed, huh? They don’t look professional to me. Look like screen grabs from a video in 480p. There are a few that are nice though.

These photos are not screen grabs off the 480i tape (progressive-scan wasn’t even a thing in 1980, the videos are all interlace-video).

The fine details are too sharp for 1980 480i-video, even looking on an iPhone. These photos are from film, and the smaller ones may’ve been scanned from contact sheets. Back in the 80’s, news photographers would print maybe six full size photos of what they considered the best photos from the shoot, but then they would print the rest on the contact sheet so that the editor, if they didn’t like any of the full size prints, they could look at the sheet, and select the photo they wanted.

 

[Another Son]

The fan club was selling quite a few high-quality (obviously) photos from ‘Music, Music, Music’ and the Christmas specials right up until they closed, A4 size. They obviously would have been professionally taken, authorised and first generation prints, as K & R, their personal secretaries and their Mum and Dad were directly linked to the fan club. None of those photos are shown on this link, (which might be what Chris said). I bought quite a few of the photos from the fan club, at the time. From memory, they were mostly or all action shots. I think a lot of the shots on the link here would have been the rejects.