Rock star’s snapshot of the 70s
MICK Rock’s iconic photographs of David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Queen and the Sex Pistols among others saw him dubbed “the man who shot the Seventies”, yet his extensive portfolio also featured modern stars, from Lady Gaga to Snoop Dogg.
Rock was David Bowie’s official photographer during the Ziggy Stardust era, shooting hundreds of reels of film of the singer’s flamehaired androgynous alter ego.
One intimate portrait was of Bowie and guitarist Mick Ronson, both aged 26, eating lunch in a British Rail dining car. Rock also created enduring album artwork for Lou Reed’s Transformer (1972) and Iggy And The Stooges’ Raw Power (1973).
He pictured Queen in diamond formation against a black backdrop for their Queen II album and the imagery was so striking it featured in their Bohemian Rhapsody video.
Rock proved a talented videographer too, directing Life On Mars?, Space Oddity, The Jean Genie and John, I’m Only Dancing. Enamoured by the backstage hedonistic lifestyle, he became addicted to cocaine and lost jobs in the 1980s because of his unreliability, although his pictures remained first-rate.
He was born in Hammersmith, west London, the son of Joan and David Rock, but claimed in a 2017 interview he had actually been fathered by a US airman who subsequently returned to the States.
He attended Emanuel School in Battersea and won a scholarship to Gonville and Caius College, where he studied languages and dabbled in psychedelic drugs.
In 1968, when he was 19, he picked up his friend’s camera and decided to become a photographer.
He said: “Sitting around his room, tripping on blotter acid, I picked up the camera and began playing with it.
“Every time I clicked, there was an explosion and I saw a lady’s faces in a million iterations.” He started taking snaps at local gigs and met Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd before David Bowie bewitched him at a concert at Birmingham Town Hall in 1972 and he befriended him backstage. Having travelled to New York with Bowie in 1972, Rock became infatuated with the city and moved there in 1977. Rock had a quadruple heart bypass and kidney transplant in the 1990s, funded by ex-Rolling Stones manager Allen Klein. His recent portraits included Snow Patrol, the Foo Fighters,Alicia Keys and Miley Cyrus.
He is survived by his second wife Pati and their daughter.