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example: Neil Young's 
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The Doors - Waiting for the Sun (1968; Elektra) Cover photo by Paul Ferrara
(You can click twice on the photos to fully expand them. Then click the left arrow (back page) to get back.) I discovered the location of the photoshoot for this album cover while watching a 1968 detective movie called HARPER starring Paul Newman that was set in the sun-drenched canyons of Los Angeles. Or, as Raymond Chandler might have put it (via my late-night AI query) . . ." "I was nursing a glass of cheap bourbon and a bad habit for old detective movies when "Harper" flickered onto the screen. Somewhere between Paul Newman's smirk and a dame with too much lipstick, I spotted it — the backdrop of an album cover I'd seen a hundred times. Los Angeles has a way of keeping its secrets, but this one had just slipped." It was midnight. It was totally random. Here's the story . . . This is the the front cover of the album. The band looks like they are in a field with the sun going up or down behind them.
The photos were all taken by Paul Ferrara, the longtime photographer of the Doors, who had gone to UCLA with Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek. In this outtake, there's a mountain behind them with what looks like a fire tower on top of it. This will be an important clue.
Here is another version of that last shot, but closer, brighter and yellower.
In this photo of the photo-session itself, we can see the photographer at bottom left.
Here's another shot with the photographer. See the distinctive little "bump" of a mountain in the middle of the picture? This will be another clue.
Now we're just going to look at outtakes for a while . . .
Outtake
Outtake
Outtake
Outtake
Outtake
Outtake
Outtake - black and white
Now things are going to get a little interesting, right about now. (a Dylan quote) I'm sitting at home, minding my own business, watching an old detective movie called HARPER, starring Paul Newman. In this scene he's driving up some canyon road with a woman, on their way to see a new age religious guru who lives on top of the mountain.
The place he's driving to is that white speck at the far left.
They continue across the top of the mountain crest.
. . . then park Newman's rusty 1955 Porsche 356 low bow T1 Speedster. (for you car fans)
They get out of the car. At this point, I'm saying to myself, "Self, those undulating mountain ridges in the back look like the ones in the back of those famous photos of the Doors."
Paul takes a few steps. I'm noticing that little mountin above the hood of his car. It's looking familiar.
He walks further. The big mountain in back has what looks like a FIRE TOWER ON IT. "That's it!" I blurted out, "That's gotta be the same mountain as behind the Doors!"
They continue walking. "Is this really the Door's' location that's been on my radar for 10 years? In a Paul Newman movie?" I thought.
They contine walking. They are walking toward some sort of space-age building.
They get closer.
This is what it looks lilke inside. There's a religious man there.
It has a great view south toward Santa Monica.
But where were they in real life?" So I stopped the movie and looked up filming locations for the movie on Google. One of the locations was called the "Moon Fire Temple (also written as Moonfire Temple or Moonfire Ranch). So I looked up Moon Fire Temple on Wikipedia and it says that in the late 1960's "it was the location of performances by Janis Joplin and THE DOORS." The Doors! They had been here. On this weird mountaintop! That convinced me I had the right place. So if the Doors had been to this location it was VERY likely, if the mountains matched up perfectly, that this is where they took the cover for WAITING FOR THE SUN. So I stopped the movie, tooks some screenshots, darkened them, and put them together.
Then I found the shot of the Doors with the big mountain behind them from my files.
I darkened all the mountains that were in the white haze of the film shots.
The mountain matched. That was one clue. (cllick to enlarge to 4000 x 781 pixels)
Then I matched up the little bump of a mountain that I mentioned before. A perfect match.
Here it is closer.
So, I superimposed the Doors (with mountain backing) over the exact mountain. (click to enlarge to 2000 x 876 pixels) And just to give the scene a little depth, I kept the Porsche in the picture.
And then I replaced them with the album cover. Voila! PopSpot!
And . . . closer.
Now let's explore the location a little more. As you can see below, the location of the Moon Fire Temple is atop a ridge. So, yes, the actual Doors cover could have been many places along the 1/4-mile ridge, but we'd never know without seeing a million more outtakes, or a proof-sheet.
So I'm just going to go with the location being where Paul Newman parked his car near the Temple, because that would seen a natural place to do a shoot - near the shade and water and bathrooms, etc. .
Now if we pull back a little, we can see that the Moon Fire Temple is on its own private road, pretty much in the middle of rugged canyons. The Pacific Ocean, near Malibu Beach, is at the bottom.
Pulling back further, on the bottom right you can read Topanga Beach. So this whole area is generally referred to as Topanga Canyon. The only clues that I had even found in print as to the location of the "Waiting for the Sun" cover had mentioned it being taken in Topanga Canyon, Laurel Canyon, or the hIlls over Malibu Beach. No specifics given. Years ago, I hovered over all those places using Google Street Views to see if I could find matching mountains. But it's about a 100 square-mile area, so I gave up, waiting for new clues to come along. Then came "Harper."
Pulling back further you can see that the location is a little east of Malibu Beach. And about 8 miles west of Santa Monica. These canyons were big with the rock stars and the rest of the counterculture back in the 1960's.
This is a picture of the Topanga Fire Lookout. The actual fire tower atop is has been taken down, and it's now a destination for hikers. This might be the base of the "fire tower" we saw on the mountain in back of the Doors. I'm no forest ranger, and it's hard to read maps about terrain, but I think this was in the general vicinity of what was behind them.
These were the type of fire towers that were on some of the mountains in that area.
Here are some more pictures of the buildings at the Moonfire Ranch. Tragically, most were heavily burned in the recent 2025 LA fires. But they are said to be soon replaced by the owner.
THAT CONCLUDES THE BASIC POPSPOT. THANKS FOR CHECKING IT OUT. BELOW HERE I'VE ADDED SOME INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT THE MOON FIRE TEMPLE (aka MOONFIRE RANCH), OTHER MUSICIANS WHO HAVE PLAYED MUSIC THERE, AND A BIO OF THE PHOTOGRAPHER, AS WELL AS OTHER RELATED ODDS AND ENDS I FOUND WHILE DOING THIS POPSPOT. This tells a little about Paul Ferrara and the photoshoot. It's from the book called Doors FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions): All That's Left to Know About the Kings of Acid Rock by Rich Weidman (Backbeat Books, 2011)
Here's what ChatGPT says about the Moon Fire Temple and the famous musicians who have played or filmed there. It mentions a Bon Jovi video, but I looked at the video called "Blaze of Glory", and I think it was filmed in Colorado, not at Moon Fire.
Here's another AI entry on the Moonfire Ranch
. . . and another.
This is a picture of the Smashing Pumpkins who filmed a video at Moonfire Ranch.0
Here's Ed Sheeran filming a video at the Ranch. Other artists that supposedly filmed there include: David Nelson Rose, Mastodon, Thrill Kill Cult, 80's hair-band Dokken's music video "Walk Away" and Tommy Chong in "Far Out Man." (via "Woodstock Whisperer" webpage).
In the book entitled "Jim Morrison: Life, Death, Legend" by Stephen Davis, Davis writes that the man who originally bought the Moon Fire Ranch area was heir to the S&H Green Stamp fortune. In the 1960's when you bought gas, they would give you about strips of little green stamps, each stamp half the size of a postage stamp, and you would lick them and stick them in a little white boo which they gave you at the gas station. When you had enough stamps, you could buy appliances with them. Quite the gimmick.
Andy Warhol, the Velvet Underground and others went on a famous trip across country to see if their type of music would play in the West Coast. It's didn't go over so well. But during this time they visited the Moonfire Estate. This is the cover of the book, called "The Trip."
About the photographer: Paul Ferrara - from his book: FLASH OF EDEN (AUTHOR HOUSE, 2007).
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