Lightning Frightening…
The BBC’s Finlo Rohrer has interviewed photographer Brian Duffy for the
As you know, Brian is the man responsible for the brilliant photographic images of DB that adorn the Lodger, Scary Monsters and Ashes To Ashes covers…not to mention the image above.
The BBC item first appeared over a week ago. However, I didn’t post it initially as I’m not sure how accurate Duffy’s claims regarding the inspiration for the Aladdin Sane lightning bolt are.
I’m no surer about them now, but here’s what he said either way…
————————————————————————————————————–
Perhaps his best known image remains the cover of the David Bowie album Aladdin Sane. Today, the image might have been produced with a generous sprinkling of Photoshop trickery. Then, everything was a bit more manual.
“Bowie was interested in the Elvis ring which had the letters TCB [taking care of business] as well as a lightning flash.”
It was decided that Bowie would have a flash on his face. Duffy drew inspiration from the mundane objects in his studio and, along with make-up artist Pierre La Roche, copied the red and blue flash off a National Panasonic rice cooker lying nearby.
“I drew on his face the design… [we] used lipstick to fill in the red,” he says.
————————————————————————————————————–
Sadly, I haven’t managed to track down anything resembling the “red and blue flash off a National Panasonic rice cooker”, but if any of you reading this know of it, please let us know.
Duffy famously torched much of his work in 1979…not sure if it was before the Lodger shoot though. If so, then it’s possible that only the Scary Monsters session survives.
If this was the case it goes some way to explaining why we’ve never seen any outtakes from the Aladdin Sane session, aside from one alternate shot on a 1973 tour leaflet.
Fingers crossed that Duffy wasn’t quite mad enough to burn any of his Bowie stuff though.
You can read the full BBC interview