David Bowie - Rock 'n' Roll Is In Your Blood (Hong Kong, 1983)

I worked in The City because my parents didn’t want me to go to Ealing Art College when I left school half a mile away, even though the college had offered me a place. I was unaware that Freddie Mercury, Ronnie Wood and Pete Townshend had all attended that same college a few years before and a statue of Freddie now stands outside. Sadly it was not to be for me. My Irish immigrant parents understandably wanted me to have a ‘real job’ so off to the Willis Faber & Dumas Fenchurch Street marine claims department I went.

I was inspired to take up photography by the music itself, along with the pageantry,

groundbreaking visuals, sound and lyrics of Seventies rock music. My influences came from Led Zeppelin, The Who, the Rolling Stones, and Queen, all of whom I saw in concert after leaving school, but it was David Bowie live at the Hammersmith Odeon in 1973 that ultimately mapped out my destiny. A man in Japanese dress ripped apart by two girls. Mime, theatre, rock music. I knew what - and who - I wanted to document. And I did. I felt slightly thwarted the following day by the announcement of David Bowie’s retirement, but in reality he had only laid to rest the ghost of my inspiration - Ziggy Stardust.

After accompanying David Bowie on two world tours and enjoying a decades-long friendship with him, I will always cherish what he once said to me -- "Denis, Rock ‘n’ Roll is in your blood."