{"id":62730,"date":"2025-08-12T23:28:17","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T23:28:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/62730\/"},"modified":"2025-08-12T23:28:17","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T23:28:17","slug":"no-one-saw-david-bowie-like-the-photographer-denis-oregan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/62730\/","title":{"rendered":"No One Saw David Bowie Like the Photographer Denis O’Regan"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"David<\/p>\n

All photographs by Denis O\u2019Regan. <\/p>\n

Nobody captured David Bowie<\/a> quite like photographer Denis O\u2019Regan. Their first encounter, outside Olympic Studios in 1974, sparked a creative partnership that would span decades, continents, and over 200 performances. Now, in David Bowie by Denis O\u2019Regan<\/a>, published last week by ACC Art Books, O\u2019Regan opens his full archive for the first time. The result is a rare, career-spanning portrait of the chameleonic rock star, featuring never-before-seen images and candid recollections from a man who knew Bowie as both icon and friend. It\u2019s also a record of proximity: of what it means to move through life alongside an artist who refused to repeat himself. In the excerpt below, O\u2019Regan recalls the day he first stood on Church Road, his second-hand Zenit camera in hand, kicking off a fateful collaboration and a lifelong bond.\u2014OLAMIDE OYENUSI<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n

One Saturday in 1974, two girls trotted into the newspaper shop where I worked, giggling, in search of pens and paper. It transpired that David Bowie was recording across the road at Olympic Studios, the man I\u2019d discovered a mile away at the Hammersmith Odeon just a year before. I hurried home to fetch my first camera\u2014a second-hand Zenit acquired from a friend for \u00a35\u2014and raced back to position myself near the steps of the building. David\u2019s Lincoln Town Car silently glided to the curb, a moment that came so swiftly and quietly I almost missed it. Determined not to let the opportunity slip away, I returned the following day, this time better prepared. David remembered me and shared a few prophetic words: \u201cYou should work for NME!\u201d I could not have foreseen that, a decade later, the words \u201cWhere\u2019s Denis?\u201d would be uttered by David Bowie so often that it became a running joke and was voted \u201ccatchphrase of the year\u201d in Sydney during the closing party of the Glass Spider Tour.<\/p>\n

\"denis<\/p>\n

1974 Bowie Olympic 02, One of the first pictures O\u2019Regan took of David Bowie offstage, outside the Olympic Studios in Barnes, West London.<\/p>\n

Having been inspired by Jimmy Page in 1972, the Ziggy Stardust show at the Hammersmith Odeon in London in 1973 was transformative, expanding my horizons beyond anything I\u2019d previously experienced. The scales fell from my teenage eyes as red velvet curtains opened on the theatre of my imagination. Bowie\u2019s cosmic ballet\u2014a fusion of music and mime with elements of Japanese kabuki\u2014left an indelible mark. A switch flipped within me: \u201cThis is the future,\u201d \u201cThis is your future.\u201d Mick Ronson in glittering breeches cut a dashing rock \u2019n\u2019 roll figure in the Spiders from Mars, his golden Les Paul glinting in the spotlight as it screamed through Moonage Daydream. The hikinuki technique, which translates as \u201cquick change,\u201d was executed at the song\u2019s opening as unseen hands tore away David\u2019s costume, revealing a mini silk kimono, styled by Kansai Yamamoto. Its creator crafted several costumes for David during his Aladdin Sane period, thrusting Bowie\u2019s ambisexual androgynous alien into the mainstream.<\/p>\n

Aladdin Sane was the first Seventies album to take its place in my vinyl collection, secured in a dance competition at a basement club opposite Richmond station, where I strolled onto the dance floor with a girlfriend, top hat in hand, and moved like Jagger. The album ushered in an era of ever more extravagant cover art and groundbreaking musical landscapes, David crafting such lines as \u201cPour me out another phone\u201d in \u201cDrive-In Saturday\u201d (1973). My frolicsome moment unfolded in the very building where The Rolling Stones held their residency a decade earlier, to which The Beatles made a pilgrimage of intrigue in 1963.<\/p>\n

\"David<\/p>\n

Time out on a boat in Bangkok during the 1983 Serious Moonlight tour.<\/p>\n

\"David<\/p>\n

1983 Bowie Hammersmith, Bowie performing in June 1983 at the Hammersmith Odeon in London, a charity show for the Brixton Neighbourhood Community Association.<\/p>\n

In May 1974, David Bowie unveiled his eighth studio album, Diamond Dogs. Hearing it conveys me back to that first fleeting encounter during recording sessions in Barnes. Two weeks later, I departed on my Grand Tour of Europe\u2014a decade touring with many of the world\u2019s greatest British musical icons, including Queen and The Rolling Stones. Two of those years were spent on tour with David Bowie. In 1978, I did in fact work for iconic music paper New Musical Express (NME)\u2014as suggested by David\u2014shooting Blondie, the Ramones, The Clash, Iggy Pop and\u2014at my request\u2014David Bowie at Newcastle City Hall, my first professional photographs of The Thin White Duke. Duran Duran\u2019s John Taylor would admire those pictures as he read his copy of NME on the bus journey to school. David Bowie\u2019s show at Madison Square Garden in New York City in 1983 was an event. Attendees backstage and at the Caf\u00e9 Seiyoken after-party included Andy Warhol, Keith Richards, Yoko Ono and Tina Turner. Mick Jagger was sensitive about being photographed on his 40th birthday, but posed for a jolly picture with David, as featured in the respected publication Newsweek a few days later.<\/p>\n

\"David<\/p>\n

1983 Bowie airport, Chilling at the airport while on his 1983 Serious Moonlight tour.<\/p>\n

\"denis<\/p>\n

1987 Bowie rehearsal NYC, David Bowie, New York City rehearsals, 1987.<\/p>\n

David played two nights at \u201cThe Garden\u201d but Ron Delsener\u2014the first New York promoter to book David in 1972\u2014believed he could have broken Elton John\u2019s record-breaking seven-night residency. During the Serious Moonlight Tour, I photographed David backstage at the Forum in Los Angeles with Michael Jackson on their first-ever encounter. At the Auteuil Hippodrome in Paris, an audience member threw glittering red shoes on stage, which David integrated into \u201cLet\u2019s Dance,\u201d sashaying with a phantom partner, and at Milton Keynes Bowl in England, he wove a parasol into \u201cChina Girl.\u201d David headlined only one outdoor show prior to 1983, so European promoters were reluctant to book him into stadiums. But when 250,000 applications were received for 44,000 tickets at one indoor arena in the UK, promoters worldwide fell over themselves to book larger venues.<\/p>\n

\"David<\/p>\n

Bowie performing for 175,000 fans over three days at the Milton Keynes Bowl in 1983, as part of the Serious Moonlight tour.<\/p>\n

\"denis<\/p>\n

1987 Amsterdam, during filming of a Pepsi advert with Tina Turner.<\/p>\n

During the Ullevi stadium show in Gothenburg, David bowed to touch the stage, referencing a move by Steve Strange, who had appeared in Bowie\u2019s \u201cAshes to Ashes\u201d video. On 20 June, 1987, a decade before Princess Diana\u2019s tragic accident in Paris, I invited my father and youngest brother Declan to David Bowie\u2019s Glass Spider show at Wembley Stadium. I escorted them on a short sojourn into the audience and out to the mixing desk in the centre of the stadium, which afforded the best view over the crowd towards the stage. I wandered back to the dressing rooms alone, blissfully unaware that Princess Diana was on her way. The backstage area was cleared of bystanders as Princess Diana glided into the inner sanctum, where David introduced her to each member of his band. Promoter Harvey Goldsmith had met Diana many times and when I asked whether I could take a picture, he replied, \u201cWhy don\u2019t you ask her yourself?\u201d Formality apparently dispensed with, I approached the most famous woman in the world, suggesting that she pose with David. \u201cDo you really think he\u2019d want to?\u201d she asked. To which I replied, \u201cI think he would!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"denis<\/p>\n

1987, Playing football with musicians and crew members in Melbourne, Australia.<\/p>\n

\"denis<\/p>\n

Bowie poses for a designer at Madame Tussauds in London, while she colour-matches his eyes for his waxwork.<\/p>\n

In 1990, David hosted a press conference at the Rainbow Theatre in London to announce his Sound+Vision Tour. I attended with a view to capturing an informal portrait prior to his appearance before the press, the resultant photographs portraying David\u2019s naturally dapper \u201ccheeky chappy\u201d persona. The inspiration for my career journey had struck 17 years prior at the Hammersmith Odeon Ziggy Stardust concert, the night before David consigned his creation to history. The retirement concert, broadcast on TV a week earlier, prompted me to enlighten David that \u201cIt\u2019s you that inspired me to take up photography.\u201d To which he replied: \u201cI bet you say that to everyone. You\u2019ll probably say it to Bono tomorrow.\u201d David was the quintessential Englishman\u2014modest and incapable of accepting a compliment.<\/p>\n

\"denis<\/p>\n

1990 Bowie Rainbow Theatre, Bowie backstage at London\u2019s Rainbow Theatre, before his 1990 press conference announcing the Sound+Vision tour.<\/p>\n

\"denis<\/p>\n

David Bowie and Little Richard, 1990.<\/p>\n

I dropped into a few shows on the Sound+Vision Tour, primarily in the USA and Europe, including the Milton Keynes Bowl in August, where temperatures approached 100 degrees Fahrenheit. There were photographs to be taken of course, but it was also an expedition with family and friends. I captured the crowd from a helicopter over the venue, then introduced Mr Jones to my father. His greeting was so very David: \u201cHello Dad!\u201d<\/p>\n

David\u2019s passing left me saddened, a sentiment that troubled me long before that fateful day. I sometimes dreamt of visiting my old chum at his Lafayette Street apartment in Manhattan. One evening I lay on the bed with my nine-year old son Rory as we immersed ourselves in the affecting melodies of Blackstar. \u201cWill I ever get to meet David?\u201d he asked. \u201cI\u2019m sure you will,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

David slipped away in New York City early the following morning of 10 January 2016, 38 years after I\u2019d first met him as he bounced across Church Road in Barnes. In tribute, along with a photograph that I\u2019d taken of the two old friends together in London, Mick Jagger tweeted: \u201cWe had so many good times together. He was my friend, I will never forget him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"denis<\/p>\n

1987 Bowie & Jagger Soho, David Bowie and Mick Jagger at \u2018Bill Stickers\u2019 Club, 1987.<\/p>\n

\"denis<\/p>\n

1983 Performing China Girl on the Serious Moonlight tour.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All photographs by Denis O\u2019Regan. Nobody captured David Bowie quite like photographer Denis O\u2019Regan. Their first encounter, outside…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62731,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[33429,33430,6225,6485,6486,16845,33431,1120,96,25721,25722,6487,56,54,55,33432],"class_list":{"0":"post-62730","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-acc-art-books","9":"tag-andy-warhol","10":"tag-arts","11":"tag-arts-and-design","12":"tag-artsanddesign","13":"tag-david-bowie","14":"tag-denis-oregan","15":"tag-design","16":"tag-entertainment","17":"tag-keith-richards","18":"tag-mick-jagger","19":"tag-photography","20":"tag-uk","21":"tag-united-kingdom","22":"tag-unitedkingdom","23":"tag-yoko-ono"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}