Greg Gorman: “I was more than a bit nervous to meet such a creative genius, not to mention a real legend. So, I was quite surprised when we came face to face to realise not only how extremely down-to-earth but very, very funny with a tremendous sense of humor he was. That certainly helped relax me for what was to be the first of many photo sessions over the next 10 years. They had never heard his music and he did an impromptu little show on the boat going to Siberia from Japan, which went down very well. And we had one night where I think he got the guitar out, and we sang to some tourists and a few young Russian soldiers, and drank too much.” Bowie pictured in Chicago in 1973 on his Ziggy Stardust tour, sporting an outfit designed by influential Japanese fashion designer Kansai Yamamoto.

Cocaine, a fascination with Nazi Germany, his failing marriage and an obsession with occult practice and writings had captured Bowie’s interest but his creative powers and aesthetic were arguably at their peak. I was just hanging out with Ava (Cherry) and David, and it just came into my stupid head. Oddly, the same name was used by a music journalist and a character in an American teen movie called Sky High. What was the atmosphere like at the Ziggy Hammersmith show after David announced on stage that it was the last show we’ll ever do? Woody & Trevor had no idea beforehand. It's kind of how it ended up happening. I wanted a camera because I loved the idea of a camera. I loved the idea of a camera like you might like the idea of a gun, the mechanics of it and the weight of it ... so to have a proper camera, as opposed to an Instamatic — Instamatics have got their place, by the way, as do Polaroids — but to have a serious camera with dials that you didn't know what they did. I probably never learned my way around it, but there's something really sexy about a camera - a real camera, a good camera. So I wanted that. I don't know how much was wanting that and wanting to use it, and not the subject as such. So, you know, David wasn't just in the way [Laughs] ... but mostly it was the camera, it was having a camera and using a camera, which I thought was really sexy.He adds, “I appreciated what happened because David told you to do something or asked you to do something, and if anybody else had said it, you'd have said, ‘That was stupid. I can't do that. I'm not a dancer. I'm not a mime artist. I'm not this or that or whatever percussionist.’ But because he said, ‘Okay, could you just go and do that?’ You kind of just did it. And it was a great life lesson.” In 1995, I was able to meet David Bowie during his ‘Outside’ tour with Nine Inch Nails and presented him with a framed copy of my favourite image of him. About three weeks later, I received an envelope from Switzerland in the mail. I didn’t know anyone in Switzerland. It was a handwritten letter from Bowie, on his embossed stationery, thanking me for my gift of the photograph. He asked that I please excuse his tardiness in sending thanks. A handwritten note. Politeness. What a perfect British gentleman! It only made me love him more.” We had a little party on the Trans-Siberian Express. We had a few drinks (copious) with some tourists and young Russian soldiers who said they were in the construction unit. David came off second-best on this occasion and I managed to snap the aftermath!” Above right, “As David, at the time, wouldn’t fly, our return trip to the UK obviously involved a sea crossing. I took this shot of David as he realised he was kind of ‘flying’ on the hovercraft”. Their time together spanned world tours and the five albums he released, from Aladdin Sane in 1973 to Station to Station in 1976, as Bowie became an international star and one of the most recognisable people on the planet.

Sometimes you say: ‘Oh, I wish I would have taken more pictures’. But I think it could have been irritating, and the attitude of the pictures would have changed,” he said. “It would have become a nuisance, rather than a sporadic thing where sometimes I had the camera, and sometimes I didn’t.”April 2023 until the 22nd October 2023. Spring public opening with guided tour, and Private View on the 1st. The private view is open to everyone but guests must RSVP to the Wende. Carr, Roy; Murray, Charles Shaar (1981). David Bowie: an illustrated record. New York: Avon. ISBN 0380779668. I thought it was a good one. I thought it was, 'Oh, that's got the big commercial possibilities.' And the timing was right because it was around the time of the film 2001[ A Space Odyssey], which was a huge film worldwide.