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David Bowie (1973) original image for Rising Signs Ltd #106 Photocard
Photographer: © David Jenkins 2001

"This picture was the focus of a lawsuit I had to bring against a T-shirt manufacturer in 1975 who used it without permission, then I sold it to a mini-poster company called Rising Signs. It was taken at Radio City Music Hall on Valentine's Night, February 1973. I was only 21 at the time but fancied myself a great rock & roll photographer, desperately wanting to be the David Hemmings character in the film Blow Up....which is funny because as you can see from the shot I had a great eye but technically I needed a lot of improvement....though the films available were so slow by comparison with today's. I ended up in concert production and theatre management and I'll tell you, I've seen everyone on stage over the last 35 years but that Bowie show remains the single greatest and most awe-inspiring concert I've ever seen. I did take many others that night while dodging the Mainman security thugs (real and true animals they were). I shot that night from the second row, even though we had balcony seats.  We just held up our tickets and blew past an usher onto the auditorium floor, unbelievable luck. I then went down front and found a corporate looking fellow with his corporate looking girlfriend and offered him a hundred dollars to take my balcony seats and give me his, and he did it to my amazement. This is when a hundred bucks was really worth something. I had gotten the camera in by strapping the 200 MM lens to my ankle (yes, I'll confess, I was wearing bell bottoms) and the camera body (a Nikon, of course) was taped high between my girlfriend's thighs, believe it or not. She acted as lookout while I shot, and it worked OK until the encore when a goon grabbed my camera, opened the back and took the roll that was inside. They didn't get the many rolls she'd been slipping into her underwear, so it was a good night. I also shot his Diamond Dogs, Young Americans and Station to Station tours but frankly none of them matched the Ziggy period. He was unearthly, a third sex, an enormous stage presence, had the audience totally captivated. While Woodmansey and Bolder were quite good, Mick Ronson was astonishing, at times almost stealing the show from Bowie. They played off of each other brilliantly." - David Jenkins (2001)

---This page last modified: 12 Dec 2018---