Debbie Harry of Blondie
In 1978, Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione wanted to start a women’s fashion magazine. Rock was commissioned to shoot a portrait of Blondie frontwoman Debbie Harry. He did it in his New York studio.
“Debbie and Bowie were the two most photogenic people to come down the pike,” said Rock. “She loved having her picture taken . . . I gave her some attitude with wild hand gestures, and she responded by pulling on the scarf.” Rock remembered that she told him, “If you were a drag queen, your name would be Miss Direction.”
As for the fashion mag, it never happened and Guccione ended up putting the punk princess on the cover of Penthouse. “She didn’t mind,” said Rock.
Iggy Pop came to London in 1972 to record the album “Raw Power” at the behest of his pal David Bowie. “Everybody was telling me to go to Iggy’s show at King’s Cross Cinema. I was with Bowie and had free range [for photos] — Iggy was notoriously crazy, charged up, but not quite drooling,” said Rock, adding that Pop was unsuccessfully trying to avoid drugs at the time. “I wound up selling pictures from that show to his record label for the ‘Raw Power’ album cover. They paid me $200. Clearly, my photo didn’t help sell the album. It wound up in the bargain bin months after the release.”
People with a lot of time and money on their hands have bid $2.5 million to “buy” Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s first message on the platform.
The winner of the auction on the Valuables site will get a digital certificate allowing them to lay claim to the 2006 tweet, in which Dorsey wrote, “just setting up my twttr.”
The battle to buy the tweet is part of the latest digital craze, known as “non-fungible tokens,” or NFTs.
An NFT is created using blockchain technology, the same tech behind digital currencies such as Bitcoin. The “non-fungible” part means it’s one-of-a-kind and can’t be replaced.
Dorsey’s tweet will stay where it is on Twitter, even after it is “bought” in the auction.
Collecting tweets, videos and digital art became enormously popular for the deep-pocketed during the pandemic.
A 10-second video by digital artist Beeple sold for $6.6 million last week, bringing new attention to the trend.