Geoff MacCormack's Amazing Photographic Journey with David Bowie

Posted on 25th January 2017 by Clare Guise

"During the early part of 1973, I had two huge strokes of luck and good fortune.

Firstly, while working in a London office, I got a call from a childhood friend called David Jones. David Jones was now David Bowie and he invited me to join his band, The Spiders, as a backing vocalist and percussionist, for a tour of the USA, Japan and the UK.

The second piece of luck was that David wouldn't fly. Thus we would have to travel the thousands of miles around the world by ship, train and road.

At the end of the tour David, surprisingly, announced his retirement. Nethertheless, I stayed with him for another two years, travelling and working on other tours - Diamond Dogs and Young Americans - and six albums, from Aladdin Sane to Station to Station." - Geoff MacCormack

These amazing images are photographic memories of their time together and are all available to buy in limited edition here

David Bowie: Location: Filming: The Man Who Fell to Earth - 1975

"I'm in make up with David, and we're larking around taking shots in the mirror. I wish I could claim design over this little gem, but in truth it was a happy accident. Obviously, I took the shot (it isn't cropped), but I don't recall engineering the image. All I can say is it is my fortuitous fluke." - Geoff MacCormack

David Bowie: Location: Filming: The Man Who Fell to Earth - 1975

"David chose this image from The Man Who Fell To Earth(1975) for publicity posters in the late seventies. I love the lines of this image - there seems to be a seamless energy drawn in by the shielded source of fire. I feel some guilt for being the one who turned him onto the Gitane cigarette he's lighting. In my defence (and his), we did smoke this brand for aesthetic reasons; both of us being enamoured of Max Ponty's delightful artwork, which depicts a gypsy dancing girl shrouded in a plume of smoke." - Geoff MacCormack

David Bowie: Location: Aboard the Trans Siberian Express, Siberia - 1973

"David sleeping off a long night of boozing somewhere in Siberia in 1973. We drank cheap Riesling and beer (Peeva) with a bunch of soldiers we'd met the night before. They were friendly and inquisitive as to what life was like in the West. We asked them what they did in the army: they said they were in the construction unit. You can just make out the bleak Siberian landscape through the window." - Geoff MacCormack

David Bowie: Location: May day Parade, Moscow - 1973

"We were given a list of do's and don'ts when we arrived in Siberia to board the 'Trans Siberian Express' - what we could and couldn't photograph - so David was breaking a whole stack of rules by filming the event, considering the amount of military hardware on show. That's why he's looking a little furtive." - Geoff MacCormack

David Bowie: Location: Hammersmith Odeon, London - 1973

"David in Ziggy makeup in 1973. This shot was taken at the Hammersmith Odeon before the last show of the tour. David was reading a review, and I sneaked this shot with a zoom lens which I already had on the Nikon so as not to disturb the quiet moment. To this day, I find it remarkable how serene he is only moments before showtime." - Geoff MacCormack

David Bowie: Location: Fenton Lake, New Mexico - 1975

"When I was (quite rightly) dropped from my role as Bowie's body double (in The Man Who Fell To Earth) for, well, looking completely and utterly different to him, it turned out to be a veiled blessing. I took advantage of the free time and the sublime New Mexico light and picked up my Nikon. This image of David is one of my favourites. I particularly like it for its raw honesty." - Geoff MacCormack

David Bowie: Location: Fenton Lake, New Mexico - 1975

"David enjoying a joke with the film crew, who were (mostly) London boys and always up for a laugh. A little bit of home in the desert!" - Geoff MacCormack

David Bowie: Location: White Sands, New Mexico - 1975

"I'm so glad I took this (once in a lifetime) of The Man, en famille, before he fell to earth. The temperature was unbearably hot at White Sands in New Mexico. This was the site of the detonation of the first atomic bomb in 1945, an eerie and desolate place." - Geoff MacCormack

David Bowie: Location: Los Angeles - 1975

"David was filming in a Japanese restaurant somewhere in L.A. He's playing up to my camera to keep himself amused in-between takes. It's as if he is saying: "And you are?" - Geoff MacCormack