In 1983 David Bowie set out on the Serious Moonlight Tour, his biggest ever. On the road with him was his official photographer, Denis O’Regan.
O’Regan’s photographs of Bowie span nearly two decades, but those taken in 1983, when he accompanied David for nine months on his most successful ever tour, are from the period when O’Regan and David became firm friends. O’Regan was given unprecedented access, and his photographs capture not only David’s unique stage performances but candid, unguarded offstage moments.
1983 was a remarkably happy year for David and this shines through in so many of O’Regan’s photographs. The tour began in May 1983 with indoor crowds of 10,000 but within weeks he was playing to stadium audiences of 60,000, and by the penultimate month, November in Auckland, he played to the biggest crowd ever assembled in New Zealand. “I think he was very happy; he really enjoyed himself,” recalled Denis.
“For the entire tour I used my favorite ever film camera, the Olympus OM-3, two or three camera bodies and 135mm & 24mm f2.8 lenses,” O’Regan also shared details of the equipment he used throughout the tour. “All live photography was taken without flash, and most offstage images were shot using natural light or occasionally bounced flash. Film was Ilford HP5 or Kodak Tri-X for black & white, push processed to 800 or 1600 ASA. For color it was predominantly Kodak Ektachrome 200 transparency film pushed to 800 ASA. Of course I had to use numerous labs around the world to process huge batches of film, which were then delivered to me a few cities later. After processing and editing, I loaded the color transparencies into a projector, and regularly put on a slide show in my room for David where he approved images for use.”
“I delivered the rolls of film for processing in one city, and they were delivered back to me a few cities later. I selected my favorites and loaded the chosen edit into a projector carousel. David then came to my room and we’d have an informal slideshow. David would say ‘yes’, ‘no’, ‘I hate it’, ‘love it’, ‘keep it for a book’ or simply ‘nah’ …”
(Photos by © Denis O’Regan)
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