Iman

Iman, Toronto, May 30, 2007

SHE REALLY, REALLY TALKED A LOT. I mean, a lot; I actually felt sorry for David Bowie at a certain point. I imagined that he didn't get a word in edgewise at home, and had this image of him holding up his finger and saying "Yes, dear - " and "Of course, darling, but..." For the first time in my life I had a reason to imagine David Bowie's home life as an old radio comedy about a retiring, milquetoast husband and his firebrand wife.

Supermodel Iman was in Toronto promoting her role in the Canadian franchise of Project Runway, which was a huge hit at the time and the subject of much coverage in the free daily. I was, of course, more than a bit overawed to be photographing Mrs. Bowie - I can't lie about that - but the prospect of having one of the world's most famous models in front of my camera was also intimidating, and I wondered if it would be possible to get anything where Iman didn't merely slip into studied poses.

Iman, Toronto, May 30, 2007

The shot at the top is very nearly what I imagined I'd get, and much of the shoot - done on the terrace of a penthouse suite in one of the new boutique hotels downtown - is like this: Iman in autopilot, presenting the sort of face that I imagine Peter Beard or Patrick Demarchelier or Richard Avedon would have tolerated for a few frames before imploring her to pretend that she cared.

It was the shot I handed into the free daily, in any case, but going through the shoot years later I noticed the frame just above. There's a bit more happening here - perhaps a bit of impatience coming through: The seasoned model concerned that this rather silent newspaper photographer isn't up to capturing her best face. If I flatter myself, it reminds me of a still from an old Italian movie - Anna Magnani or Gina Lollabrigida building up to a fierce tirade at some hapless male co-star. In any case, my closest brush with fashion's upper echelon.

David Bowie/Two Years

David Bowie, Skydome, Toronto, March 7, 1990

TWO YEARS HAVE GONE BY LIKE WEEKS. As I wrote when David Bowie died, I never seriously imagined that there would be a time when he wasn't around, somewhere, doing something. He was there, doing something, in my earliest memories of the radio, years before I became a fan, and while it's hardly reasonable to rely on that presence, I had never seriously prepared myself for a post-Bowie world.

David Bowie, Skydome, Toronto, March 7, 1990

And so, on the anniversary, I have gone back to that 1990 show I forgot I ever shot to make one last trawl for photos. These are the odd frames - the moments in between and the almost-theres and the shots I never would have submitted to my editor at the end of the assignment. For someone who would forget he was at that show, I seem to have put a lot of effort into getting something in the moment. Or maybe David was simply good at delivering.

David Bowie, Skydome, Toronto, March 7, 1990

This last shot is something I'd only have looked at now - a brief, placid moment in the middle of a frantic performance. A glimpse of the man behind the show? Maybe. Maybe not. It probably didn't look elegiac then, but it does now.

We spent the last night of Christmas vacation last week in the kitchen, listening to the Bowie playlist on my older daughter's Apple Music. There are really few things more enjoyable than embarrassing your children by singing along loudly to the theme from Cat People while doing a jigsaw puzzle of TV dinners. One more thing for which I can thank him.

David Bowie (aka David Robert Jones) died in New York City of cancer on January 10, 2016.

David Bowie

David Bowie, Skydome, Toronto, March 7, 1990

I NEVER THOUGHT HE WOULD DIE. It's a ridiculous thing to say, I know, but as far as I was concerned David Bowie was always there and, based on precedent, always would be. Obviously I was wrong. 

The news came out of nowhere; no one but his family and friends knew he was ill and, having stage managed his life with seemingly effortless success for so many years, he made his exit with remarkable discretion.

David Bowie, Skydome, Toronto, March 7, 1990

One of my first entries in this blog was about him. I had maintained for years that, to my everlasting regret, I'd never seen him live, and until I discovered these negatives in my files, I was sure that I hadn't. Which is a very strange thing to do if you're a big fan. A really, really big fan.

The Skydome, Sound & Vision tour, 1990. As I rationalized in that post, this wasn't how I ideally wanted to see one of my great heroes - two, maybe three songs from a photo pit at the side of the stage - so I erased the memory. Better to have no memory at all than one that reminded me of opportunities missed - Seneca Field House with Iggy Pop, Maple Leaf Gardens in 1978.

And now this is my only memory, so I guess I'd better cherish it.

David Bowie, Skydome, Toronto, March 7, 1990

It was Paul Thurston who turned me on to Bowie, back in grade nine at St. Mike's. I'd heard his hits on the radio all through my childhood - Major Tom, Ziggy, the soul boy and early Thin White Duke  - but Paul insisted I buy a copy of Heroes, his latest record. He said it would change my life.

There's at least a whole generation of us - the "Bowie-damaged" ones. All the punks were Bowie damaged, and at least every other musical genre or social subculture since then has had his fingerprints on it. The man has a hell of a legacy. It just seems strange that he's no longer going to be around to enjoy it.

David Bowie, Skydome, Toronto, March 7, 1990

David Bowie was always on my "list." He was on that list when Chris Buck and I first made ours, and he remained on it even when I knew that my chances of getting him in front of my camera for a portrait - slim even before he was a recluse - became almost completely improbable. Even if there was the barest chance I cherished the fantasy that luck and fortune might somehow beat the odds. No more.

I married a Bowie fan and we've made little Bowie fans out of our children. The man taught me about inspiration and re-invention and going unexpected places when your creativity needs more light and air. I suppose I kept him on my list because I wanted the chance to tell him that. I'm guessing, though, that he'd have heard it before, plenty of times.

David Bowie (aka David Robert Jones) died in New York City of cancer on January 10, 2016.

 

 

Iggy

FOR YEARS I INSISTED THAT I HAD NEVER SEEN IGGY POP LIVE, despite being a big fan. As with David Bowie, I presumed that since I'd missed seeing both of them at the height of their creative careers (which happened to coincide to just after the mid-point of the '70s,) I'd given them a miss whenever the opportunity came up, afraid of being disappointed.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I found this staring at me from a binder full of unedited colour slides:

Iggy Pop, Toronto 1990

Iggy Pop at the Concert Hall, shot during the Brick By Brick tour. I have no record of who the client might have been. I'm guessing it was shot with my ill-starred Nikon F3, and that I might have rented a 300mm telephoto for the occasion since I never owned a lens for the Nikon long enough to have gotten this sort of close-up from what I'm pretty sure was the side of the stage, just by the speaker columns.

Or maybe not. Brick By Brick was a pretty lousy record and I'd long since stopped caring about what Iggy was doing by this point, so I can't imagine that I'd have invested money out of pocket on a shoot that I didn't care enough about to remember as soon as it was over. Maybe I was close enough to use my mild portrait telephoto.

I'm guessing, though, because - like the Bowie show I shot the same year - I have no memory of shooting this at all. My wife has suggested that since I didn't see them when they were at their most vital to me - Iggy at Seneca Field House in 1977 with Bowie on piano, touring to support The Idiot; Bowie at Maple Leaf Gardens in either 1976 or 1978 - I had diminished the memory, since seeing them past their prime didn't count.

As I said before, shooting Bowie probably wasn't the most ideal circumstance - from some distant point in the local sports stadium, on the end of a long lens - but with Iggy I was in a modestly sized venue and obviously close enough to get these shots. So why didn't I remember seeing someone who was so hugely important to me?

Maybe it was the drugs.

But I don't remember doing any drugs by the turn of the '90s. I was too busy and too poor, but also too concerned with being in control, since I'd begun taking this photography thing very seriously and was desperate to make a living from it. I can't use the excuse about "getting old," since I clearly forgot about seeing Iggy weeks if not days after shooting these photos, and I wasn't even 30 yet.

Here's the thing: This sheet of colour slides is all I've got. I've combed the binder full of negatives from 1990 and there's no live Iggy to be found, so I obviously went in there with a single roll of colour slide film, then left when I filled it, clearly unwilling to stay for a few extra minutes to fill a roll of black and white. I don't think I wanted to be there, so it's not surprising that I couldn't be bothered remembering that I was.

Which is kind of sad, and in retrospect I think Iggy probably deserved better. In any case, here's another frame from the same sheet of slides, and something more like Iggy as I'd like to remember him.

Iggy Pop, Toronto 1990

Bowie

WE'RE BIG DAVID BOWIE FANS around this house. My own love of Bowie goes back to Paul Thurston, the hippest guy I knew in grade 9, telling me to buy a copy of his new album, Heroes. I'd liked his singles back from the Spaceman, Ziggy Stardust, Soulboy and Thin White Duke periods when I heard them on the radio in grade school, but this was something different - harsh and difficult and, frankly, very much how I felt as the '70s were coming to their pinched end and adolescence was roaring in my ears.

My wife, growing up in Nova Scotia, conceived of a fandom even more fervent than mine, and when the Victoria & Albert Museum's David Bowie Is... show came to town, we turned it into a family event. Child #1 was already a fan (fave Bowie song: "Jean Genie,") and Child #2 became one in short order (fave Bowie song: "Starman.") We have a lot of time for Mr. Bowie around here.

My wife saw Bowie live, and it had been one of the lingering regrets of my life that I didn't jump at the chance to see him playing piano for Iggy Pop at Seneca College Field House during the Idiot tour. I maintained that I'd never seen Bowie in concert whenever the subject came up, so imagine my surprise when I was sorting through a box of old prints yesterday and found this:

Shot during the Sound + Vision tour stop at the Skydome (now the Rogers Centre,) probably on assignment for NOW magazine. I had no memory at all of shooting this or being there - in all likelihood for just the three songs allotted to the media - and even now I can't recall a single detail of the shoot or the concert.

The rubber stamping on the print suggests that this was made after the fact for another client and returned when they were through with it, since NOW kept all of my shots for their archive. (Before donating that archive for a tax break to a university library. They got the tax break - the photographers, nominal owners of the prints, didn't. Yes, I was angry at the time. Bloody commies.)

It survived a massive purge of my prints I did over a decade ago (two garbage bags filled with photos) so I've obviously glanced at it at some point in the last 25 years, to no lasting impression on my memory. Three songs in a photographers' pen at a stadium show didn't count as "seeing Bowie" for me. Still doesn't, obviously.

I likely shot it with my troublesome Nikon F3, and since it doesn't look like I was in the gutter in front of the stage shooting past the monitors up Bowie's nostrils, I probably rented a 300mm telephoto from Vistek and shot from some point by the sound board. Maybe. Like I said - I can't remember a thing.

It's not a great photo; anyone could probably have taken this shot, in the same spot with the same lens. It's really just a record of a moment that I couldn't be bothered to retain. I'm imagining there might be a few more surprises like this behind the analog wall as I start digging - or at least I'm hoping there are.

So I didn't remember shooting one of my musical idols. I did, however, remember that I've photographed Mrs. Bowie:

Iman, 2007, shot with Canon EOS Rebel

She was nice, but she gave a lot of "model face" during the shoot. (Not surprisingly, I guess.) And she talked. A lot. I don't think David gets a word in edgewise when he's at home.