BOWIE NIGHTS: BEHIND THE LENS
On Tuesday 26th May, six renowned photographers — Geoff MacCormack, Kevin Cummins, Richard Young, Denis O’Regan, Tony McGee, and Chris Duffy — gathered for a special“Bowie Nights” panel at Lightroom in King’s Cross.
Hosted by journalist Miranda Sawyer, the collaborators shared rare images and behind-the-scenes stories, offering a unique glimpse into the creative process, professional ease, and surprisingly normal personality of the music icon.
The panelists highlighted Bowie’s instinctive genius in front of the camera, noting that he required zero direction and gave his photographers complete creative freedom. Chris Duffy shared the unique long-exposure technical process behind his father Brian Duffy‘s iconic Aladdin Sane album cover, while Richard Young exhibited an intimate, rare shot of Bowie performing in The Elephant Man on Broadway.
Other stories revealed a lighter, more grounded side to the star. Tour photographer Denis O’Regan recalled how sweet and ordinary Bowie was, remembering a moment when the rock star humorously grumbled about exhaust fumes in a tuk-tuk:
“The thing that people didn’t realise about him was just how normal and sweet he was, which is not what I expected when I first started working with him.”
Tony McGee shared a photo of Bowie laughing at a radio, revealing that the star was actually being amused by the stern English voice of the BBC Shipping Forecast. He reiterated what others had said by telling the audience, “It shows really just how much fun David was”.
Meanwhile, childhood friend Geoff MacCormack captured Bowie writing Station to Station in Los Angeles, reflecting on how deeply Bowie lived the grueling experiences he wrote about.
Kevin Cummins, who began documenting Bowie in 1973 on the Ziggy Stardust tour shared that the star would never refuse a photo, he was very comfortable in front of the camera:
“Photographing Bowie is like trying to get a new picture of the Eiffel Tower. He’s been photographed by everybody so how do you do something different? What he was really good at was letting you do your own work, he wouldn’t interfere. If you said ‘this is the idea for the shot’, he’d say ‘go ahead and do it’, and then he’d do the Bowie faces and do the right thing for you”.
This exclusive panel was part of Lightroom’s broader Bowie Nights season, a series of cross-disciplinary events running from May to September 2026 that will feature creators like Jonathan Barnbrook and Adam Buxton. Audiences can sign up to Lightroom’s mailing list HERE for further details and first chance to purchase tickets.
The events run alongside the daily immersive production, David Bowie: You’re Not Alone. Fully authorized by the David Bowie Estate, this spectacular show utilizes thousands of hours of rare archival footage and state-of-the-art spatial audio to transport audiences directly into Bowie’s most legendary performances. Tickets available HERE.
