Bowie: The Definitive Collection

Terry O’Neill

OCTOPUS Iconic shots of an icon by an icon.

When Terry O’Neill first photographed David Bowie (appearing as Ziggy Stardust for the very last time while filming The 1980 Floor Show at London’s Marquee in November ‘73), he’d already shot Beatles, Stones, Garland, Sinatra, Olivier, Bardot, Caine… everyone, basically. Commissioning O’Neill was yet another way for Aladdin Dave to proclaim to the wider world that he was (finally) an actual star. O’Neill was only delighted to accept, for he’d been around enough stars to know one when he saw one, and Bowie (especially when refracted through O’Neill’s lens) was clearly the real thing.

Here, for 40 quid, you get a weighty book of brilliant images (the jumping dog; meetings with William Burroughs and Elizabeth Taylor; on set for The Man Who Fell To Earth) and lashings of previously unseen material across 290 pages. Bowie might have been one of the most photographed subjects of the rock epoch, but these are the shots to cherish. ■■■■■■■■■■