Aww Who Loves Aladdin Sane? I Do I Do I Do

Opening night Exhibtion at White Cloth Gallery Leeds. One of my favourite pictures

Original prints of works by photographer Brian Duffy

 I made a point of getting tickets for the opening night of an exhibtion at The White Cloth Gallery in Leeds. I am going to the V&A Exhibtion in August and thought this seemed too good to miss.  The work was that of photographer Brian Duffy an artist that spent about ten years working closely with David Bowie. Producing the images for three of Bowies most iconic album covers. The exhibit included many behind the scenes and rejected images. Some of my favorites were the 'Lodger' album pictures. As a kid I always found this cover a bit disturbing and slightly sinister.

A distressed looking David Bowie being prepped for Lodger album cover

The lovely Kevin Cann signing his book David Bowie The London Years

 I also got to meet and speak to the lovely Kevin Cann. Kevin has followed David's career pretty much from the beginning. I bought his new book 'David Bowie - The London Years' He was also very gracious in giving us some stories on the great man himself.  Like the story of how Brian Eno and David Bowie had visited Kevin at his home in a pre arranged visit. Afterwards David had asked Brian if he thought Kevin would mind if he popped around again!! And that's exactly what he did, turning up at Kevin's door unnanounced. Apparantly he knocked on the door and asked to come in. PERFECT !!!!!!!

The delicious Ziggy Stardust cocktail

The Duffy Collection comprises of images taken during five photographic sessions with iconic musician David
Bowie, released to coincide with the Victoria and Albert Museum’s ‘David Bowie is’ exhibition.
The Duffy Collection, has been taken from the Duffy archives and it will be at White Cloth Gallery until 15th July.
The exhibition includes shots from three album covers and documents Duffy’s special relationship with the artist over a period of nearly ten
years.
Duffy’s work spans from Ziggy Stardust (1972) through to The Lodger (1979) and also includes additional photographs from the set
of Nick Roeg’s film ‘The Man Who Fell to Earth’ (1976). As well as documenting Bowie’s extraordinary career and pioneering
reinvention, the collection features portraits of those close to the star such as David’s first wife Angie Bowie and Pierre
LaRoche (Aladdin Sane make-up artist), plus some never before seen, behind the scenes photographs.
The exhibition marks the 40th anniversary of one of Duffy’s most iconic Bowie images, the famous Aladdin Sane album cover which
is still considered to be the most memorable album cover of its decade.
Duffy was one of the innovators of documentary fashion photography, contributing to leading newspapers such as the Sunday Times,
Telegraph and the Observer. As one of the world’s most renowned editorial photographers, Duffy also worked for a number of
leading fashion titles including British Vogue, French Elle and Harper’s Bazaar. He was largely accredited (along with fellow
photographers David Bailey and Terence Donovan) with creating the ‘Swinging London’ of the 1960’s, photographing top models of
the age such as Jean Shrimpton and Paulene Stone.
In 1979 Duffy decided to give up photography, and burnt many of his negatives, though some were saved from the fire. However,
thanks to the work of the Duffy Archive which was established in 2007, many negatives and contact sheets from numerous UK and
International publications have been successfully retrieved.