Although he was primarily a musician, Bowie's legacy is as visual as it is sonic.
His "schoolgirl playing" with genres, and during his career he embraced rock, funk, industrial and avant-garde instrumentals, was always accompanied by a new characteristic image.
His style was always in its infancy - from the red-haired alien Ziggy Stardust, to the blind man in a suit from the album phase Heathern (2002) - and always, like his music, presented a strong message, imposing expectations that future stars will follow in his footsteps.
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Lady Gaga's constant changing of masks was inspired by Ziggy and the Thin White Duke - a sartorial tribute that the singer often points out.
Meanwhile, Vogue magazine recently published a provocative cover photo of Harry Styles in a dress, nonchalantly ignoring the fact that Bowie first did it in 1970, when he was photographed in a ravishing floral dress, designed by Michael Fish, for an album cover The Man Who Sold the World.
It was part of the disguise game he resorted to even when he was involved in side projects, such as when he played the Goblin in the cult film fantasy Labyrinth from 1980, then when he lent his voice to the story Peter and the Wolf Sergei Prokofiev, as well as when he performed the song "The Little Drummer" with Bing Crosby.
He was an outsider who ideally suited the role - a man who should be allowed to create.
Throughout his career, too, the guidelines for experimental turns in the direction of different characters were given by the cameras he stood in front of.
As noted in a recently published book David Bowie: Icon, with his photographs signed by 25 different authors, Bowie has always understood the power that photography has in the world around him.
Even from today's perspective, those shots look impressive, but it was completely clear to most photographers that, at the moment they were taking pictures, they were doing something special.
We asked some of them what it was like to work with the creative mage.
Markus Klinko
Klinko, who photographed Bowie on several occasions, says he was an ideal model - and not just because of his bony cheeks, another detail that put Bowie ahead of his time in the fashion world.
In 2002, when Bowie could not schedule a photo session for GQ magazine's "Man of the Year" award due to commitments, it was Klinko who designed the composite photos in which the musician keeps wild wolves on leashes in the Gulf landscape.
In 2013, Klink was chosen by Bowie to direct the video for the song Valentine's Day from the album The Next Day, because the photographer had told him a few years earlier that he would like to direct his music video.
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However, Klinko emphasizes that every improvisation on the set with the famous singer was always based on a solid idea.
When they first collaborated, for the Heathen album cover, he and Bowie listened to rough mixes of the album together before entering the studio to make sure they were on the same wavelength.
"He was open to collaboration, but everything always started from a strong idea he had," says Klinko.
“When you look at the cover for Heathen, he is apparently blind with (bleached) eyes. We used special effects. But regardless, he had a definite idea of the angle and the eyes blinded in just that way. It was inspired by Man Ray.
And the XNUMXs-style suit, he wanted that very much... Sometimes when you work with other artists who are beautiful and extraordinary and attractive, they don't necessarily have the same mindset.
It's usually all about looking good, no matter what you're wearing. In that case, the stylist or myself and my team cut: This is going to look great. Sometimes a publisher will say: Don't go too crazy. But Bowie was completely different in that regard."
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Mick Rock
Many other photographers who collaborated with him speak about Bowie's absolute creative focus, which impressed Klink.
Bowie had a clear idea of his image and how he wanted to present it - but he was also wise enough to choose artists to help him realize his vision.
Mick Rock was one of his closest collaborators, photographing and directing videos that featured Bowie's third eye, from the period of Kansai Yamamoto's Ziggy one-piece costume.
They were very close - during 1996 when Rock was in hospital for bypass surgery, Bowie was among the people who sent him flowers.
After his experience in the studio, when he took pictures of the singer with a recognizable "tarzanka" hairstyle and blue eye shadow, Rock realized that he enjoyed it just as much as when he took more relaxed photos.
"We got along well, we didn't have to talk much," he says.
"As you can see in the pictures, the reason is that he enjoyed himself. He came to play. We didn't prepare for a long time, not even for photos with the saxophone, although it was the first time I took pictures of it in the studio.
And then the pictures appeared as a visual part of the album Pin Up (his 1973 album, released a year after Ziggy Stardust). But he was the nicest person in the world, from a photographer's perspective, you couldn't take a bad photo working with him."
Janet Makoska
Janet Makoska believes that Bowie, in addition to using the ability to tell a story through photographs, also understood how they affect the people who look at them.
A photographer from Cleveland, Ohio, she spent her teenage days photographing musicians who usually came to the city to kick off their US tour.
She recalls that when she saw Bowie for the first time in 1974, she was moved by the power of his charisma on stage and his two-tone eyes, which did not prevent her from treasureing the airy, slightly out-of-focus footage from that first performance.
But when Bowie returned in 1976, on a tour where no photography was allowed, she was only offered to shoot the look of the set stage.
In return, she was allowed to sneak into the show, smuggling in a camera, and security saw right through her fingers.
"I tiptoed a couple of times to get a few shots, but David had two huge security guys on stage, one on the left and one on the right," she recalls.
"When he saw the camera, he would point his finger in that direction, and the boulders would come down and take away the film. But there I was, changing myself, and he saw me. He stretched out his hand and waved, telling me: ʼYou must not do that, shame on you!ʼ
And then he smiled and motioned to the security guards to let me go. And that's how I filmed the whole performance! It's like I got a blessing."
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Other concert photographers working at the time would tell you a similar story - most of them at some point had to break the rules of the organization in order to capture the perfect shot.
However, the second part of the story took place in 1995, during a tour on which Nine Inch Nails was supporting Bowie, when she managed to give him a framed photo taken the night he prevented security from kicking her out of the concert.
A few weeks later, he answered her.
"I got a letter from Switzerland, and I didn't know anyone living there," she says.
"David sent it to me thanking me for the gift. "Please don't blame me for being slow to answer you": They sound like the words of a polite British schoolboy, it's beautiful. The letter was handwritten by David Bowie thanking me for the gift.
Jeff McCormack
And while most photographers took pictures of the great man, Jeff McCormack simply photographed his childhood friend.
A schoolmate who became part of the band's crew during the Spiders from Mars and Diamond Dogs tours, he held various responsibilities in Bowie's wider team of collaborators.
Among other things, he was a surfing instructor and buddy and the worst-dressed replacement for Bowie on a sci-fi film set The Man Who Fell to Earth (The Man Who Fell to Earth) from 1976, entering the stage as crew members were checking lighting and camera angles, a role usually filled by people who look like the performing star.
But in the period 1973-1976, he collected photos and videos of Bowie from the tours because he was interested in photography, a passion that died out for him soon after doing that job.
"I'm a fraud, I don't deserve to be in the book," he wrote in his column.
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His photographs show banal situations on tour - Bowie posing in front of various means of transport, sleeping in small wagon beds, sitting in make-up backstage and waiting for the moment to go on stage.
Makormak says that his work was not premeditated, he just hunted what was in front of his lens.
"I wasn't saying to myself, 'Hey, you have to get up early in the morning.' You mustn't drink too much tonight, tomorrow you get up early and you have to paint," he recalls.
"It's just a good photo, the moment it pleased the lens, a combination of circumstances."
Makomak laughingly dismisses the idea that Bowie was the perfect model for the photo:
"It didn't turn out great in some situations, so I'm not going to use those photos," he says.
Although he was not a photographer for long, he loved the imperfect documentary-style shots he took.
And Bowie loved them too.
Five years after his death, Bowie's influence on popular culture continues to grow.
"I've always had this repulsive need to be something more than a man," he once remarked.
The photos that remain bear witness to the success of that life's artistic project, an alien transformation.
When we look back at his entire work, it is difficult to determine where the great man ends and the man begins.
And Klinko concludes that this is exactly the essence of his work.
"His last album, Blackstar, the way he was presented, the way he left the day after his release, his whole life had a wonderful artistic character," he says.
"Every move was planned in advance."
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