David Bowie : Loving The Alien #4

David Bowie, photographed for the cover of the Loving The Alien single after finishing filming the video for the song at Meantime Studios in Greenwich 3.12.1985.

after every picture tells a story, the next album i bought was the rise and fall of ziggy stardust and the spiders from mars, from a record shop on cranbrook road in ilford (yes, home of the film i always used) in the summer of 1972.

imagine how excited i was when, in early 1985, i heard that david bowie and his personal assistant coco schwab were looking for a photographer they hadn’t worked with before to shoot extensive artwork for the ‘loving the alien’ single sleeve. following recommendations both from my publicist friend versa manos and warner brothers’ head of press moira bellas, i received word that david and coco wanted to look at my portfolio, and following a tortuous wait, i finally heard from bowie’s label rca that they wanted me to spend two days photographing him on the set of his ‘loving the alien’ video shoot.

the brief for the sleeve was to shoot david in blue face paint, standing in front of a stained glass backdrop, echoing the tonight album cover, and also to shoot stills of the video for use in multiple formats of the single, including a standard sleeve, a gate-fold sleeve, a 12-inch sleeve, a picture disc, a shaped picture disc, and a poster.

i tried not to freak out, at least not outwardly, but it was the biggest job of my career at that point. or at any point. so as i drove across south london on a monday morning in march, i was much more nervous than normal prior to a job. i had no idea what to expect when i sheepishly walked into meantime studios in greenwich, but as i made my way across the dark, cavernous warehouse space with my camera bag hanging over my shoulder, a blue-and-brown-eyed vision emerged from the shadows, walking towards me, perfectly dressed and coiffed, right hand extended, and as he grabbed and shook my hand, he said, in that unmistakable brixton accent, “hello, i’m david. you must be steve.”

bowie didn’t stay hidden in his dressing room during the shoot. he hung around on the set, talking to director david mallet, to the electricians and the carpenters, and to the rest of the crew. he didn’t display any airs and graces. he was just this beautiful gentleman: elegant, charming, exactly as you would imagine david bowie to be, throughout two consecutive 16-hour days.

when the video finally wrapped at around 1:30am on tuesday night/wednesday morning, everyone was exhausted and ready to leave, but the makeup artist and lighting guy were kind enough to stay and help with my shoot, because just like raymond, everybody loved david. the art department made a stained glass window out of a sheet of plastic, and the only place in the studio with a wall to hang it on was, bizarrely, the studio bathroom. while the crew crammed into the tiny space, david bowie climbed into the bathtub and with a single light illuminating his blue visage, we finally shot the cover photograph, and i was able to breathe again.