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The Man Who Shot Ziggy Stardust by Guy Babineau
If there is one man who knows how to tailor an image it’s David Bowie. His 1980 song Fashion on the album Scary Monsters was written before who’s wearing what had become a subject of widespread media attention, and before the influence of music videos on TV. The song mockingly celebrated shallowness albeit from a trendsetter who for the last thirty years has had a bigger influence on fashion than any other pop star, including Madonna. Was Bowie aware of the irony? No doubt. Irony was his tailor’s dummy during the time period in which he tirelessly switched personas, from the June 6, 1972 UK release of the album that ignited glam rock, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars, until 1983’s mainstream hit machine Let’s Dance.
The musician’s critically acclaimed new release Heathen is being called his best work since Scary Monsters. This will appease fans old and new, who thought Let’s Dance marked the end of an era. Ziggy was an intergalactic Liberace for the Me Generation. Resplendent in flaming red hair, kabuki makeup, platform boots and glittering clothes by cutting edge designers, the rock star from outer space landed on Earth five years prior to an impending apocalypse. Ziggy’s response to the approaching doom? Some great music and a series of fabulous costume changes.
Bowie reinvented himself by changing looks time and time again while Madonna was still in a training bra. He knew that image alone was not enough. It was content requiring conveyance. Despite her limited talent, the brand new phenomenon of music videos made the photogenic Material Girl a star in the early ‘80s. Bowie’s large talent provided a firm foundation for his fame but he owed much of his initial success to that thing which is worth a thousand words. Like a beauty in olden-days Hollywood–Garbo, Crawford, Dietrich–Bowie exploited the camera in a way no musical star before him had.
“David always knew the value of image,” Mick Rock said over the phone from his home in New York. “The rock world didn’t think much of photographers back then. We were…irritating. It was like, ‘When is this going to be over?’ David was different. He was completely involved and always had ideas.”
When he was in his early twenties and just embarking on his career, the preeminent ’70s rock photographer befriended Bowie and took more pictures of Ziggy Stardust than anyone else. Rock continues to photograph celebrities and fashion. A limited edition of his Ziggy Stardust photos, Moonage Daydream, is being published this month. Blood & Glitter, a book of his photography chronicling the entire glam era, has been out for a few months. Some of his Ziggy pics are currently on view in a Bowie retrospective at NYC’s Museum of TV and Radio, as well as at the Govinda Gallery in Washington, DC. A charming man, and refreshingly candid, Rock talked about how his relationship with Bowie and Ziggy came about.
“I didn’t plan to be a photographer. It was an accident.” He was studying languages on a scholarship at Cambridge when an impromptu experience involving an acid trip, a camera and a girlfriend changed his life. “Not to condone LSD but credit where credit’s due. I loved how the pictures turned out.”
Rock began haunting the clubs and concert halls of London, camera in tow, shooting live shows. He chatted and socialized his way into some music magazine contacts and people started to buy and publish his pictures. “No one had portfolios then. In fact, I never had a portfolio until very recently.”
One day when he was walking through Soho he saw posters for Hunky Dory, Bowie’s third album, graced by the singer’s Garbo- like countenance. “That amazing face. Was it a boy or a girl? I knew I had to frame it with my lense.”
Fortuitously, someone gave him a promotional copy of Hunky Dory and he was impressed. Despite Bowie’s relative obscurity, Rock convinced the UK editor of Rolling Stone to let him cover the ambitious artist on assignment.
“I went to see him perform in Birmingham. He didn’t look at all like Hunky Dory anymore. Ziggy Stardust was in the can and was coming out in a couple of months. He was striking, dynamic…intriguing. He wasn’t famous yet – there were maybe about 300 or 350 people – but he performed like he was a star in a much bigger venue.”
The two struck up a friendly acquaintance and discovered that they shared similar tastes in music, art and writing. Consequently, for the next year and a half Rock chronicled the life and times of Ziggy Stardust. Did he realize he was part of something that was going to change popular music and fashion?
“Not a clue. I didn’t know very much. I was just some young guy who knew what he liked.”
Shooting Ziggy Stardust helped make Rock’s career, and it didn’t hurt Bowie’s. Today the photographs are trophies of a time when Bowie was a fresh breath of Revlon and, like the song Lady Stardust says, “People stared at the makeup on his face.” Rock’s pictures publicized the unprecedented androgyny of Bowie’s creation, opening up new territory in male fashion.
While they were poring over photos for Moonage Daydream, Rock mentioned to Bowie that he had taken pictures of Ziggy in at least seventy outrageous outfits.
“David said, Oh what a fucking waste of money that was Mick.” Rock laughed over the phone, hesitated, then added quickly, “I don’t think he meant it.” Men's Tailoring The Man Who Shot Ziggy Stardust Boss Hugo Boss Ken: The Ultimate Male Model Men's Shoes Heatherette The Duffer of St. George The Men of 2003 © Guy Babineau 2003-2004
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