David Bowie, The Rolling Stones, Queen and more photographed by Denis O’Regan
Denis O’Regan discovered his craft through a passion for live music. O’Regan began his career in music photography at the dawn of the punk era in the mid-1970s, boasting an impressive catalogue which includes iconic photographs of David Bowie, Duran Duran, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Queen, Kiss, Europe, Neil Diamond, Bee Gees, Pink Floyd and Thin Lizzy.
In a recent interview, O’Regan, born in London in 1953 to Irish parents, told me how he broke into the competitive vocation. “I was very into music at the beginning, when I was, like, under ten,” he began. “I got my mother to take me to see The Beatles. Later, after school, I went to see Led Zeppelin and the Stones.”
Continuing, O’Regan remembered how an early ’70s Wings concert proved to be a pivotal moment. “I smuggled my camera into a soundcheck for a Paul McCartney’s Wings concert at Hammersmith Odeon, which is where I had seen The Beatles because it was about the nearest theatre, and that’s where I took the first picture I ever sold.”
While this sneaky encounter with McCartney encouraged O’Regan to pursue a legitimate career in live music photography, David Bowie would become his most salient subject. He first met Bowie in 1975 while working in a local shop to raise money for an interrailing trip in Europe. “Some girls came in looking for notepads and pens,” O’Regan remembered. “I knew it was for autographs, and I said, ‘Who’s there?’ And they said ‘David Bowie’. He was at a recording studio across the road.”
“I went home, got my little cheap, five-pound Russian camera, came back and waited. And he and he turned up, and I got a few pictures. So that was that,” he added. The following year, O’Regan began documenting iconic live gigs amid London’s burgeoning punk scene, becoming a major contributor to the NME. With The Jam, Sex Pistols, The Damned and The Clash safely stowed in his portfolio, the best was yet to come.
In 1979, O’Regan secured his first appointment as an official touring photographer on the road with Thin Lizzy. During a Damned gig, he had become acquainted with a photographer who was close with the band and suggested he accompany them on an upcoming tour in Scandinavia.
Among several other exciting appointments, O’Regan accompanied Thin Lizzy on various tours between 1980 and ’83. “In ’83, I was in a huge car crash with [Thin Lizzy] in Sweden, with the driver going at 144mph in torrential rain because we were late,” O’Regan remembered. “It was an immense crash, and what I didn’t realise was that, at that moment, when we all thought we were gonna die, the David Bowie rehearsals had begun in America for the tour that I would be on. But I didn’t even know it yet.”
Through the 1980s, O’Regan excelled as a tour photographer, most prolifically with David Bowie, but also joining the likes of Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, Neil Diamond and Queen. In 1982, he accompanied The Rolling Stones on their only European tour between 1976 and 1990.
Having picked out Bowie as his all-time favourite photography subject, I asked O’Regan whether he liked working from a studio. “Never the studio; I hate it,” he asserted. “Quite often, you’ll photograph lots of different people in the studio, and you don’t know them from Adam. They’re probably famous, but you’ve got to put them at ease and keep them entertained, and I’m just not into that, really.”
“My favourite setting is travelling around the world with a rock star photographing them,” he added. “I love it. It’s really exciting on tour, but of course, you see the same show every night, so that can become a bit tedious and repetitive no matter who it is.”
Over the past 20 years, O’Regan has branched out into festival photography, enjoying high-profile assignments on major stages at Glastonbury and Coachella. In 2019, O’Regan opened a gallery in Hammersmith, where he exhibits and sells limited edition prints and his published photography books. Some of O’Regan’s work is currently included as part of a collection at West Contemporary Editions, with prints available here.
Below, we present some of Denis O’Regan’s most iconic shots of stars both on stage and in more intimate settings.
