I photographed David Bowie for the first time in 1974, when his manager Michael Lippman asked if I had the time to work with his client. I said yes before he could finish his sentence. 1974 was a great year for Bowie, and I was excited….I booked a studio in L.A. for a Saturday. My assistants and I arrived at 9 AM to prepare and set up lights. At four o’clock David Bowie appeared. From the moment he arrived—such flaming red hair!—we seemed to hit it off. If you were expecting a wild rock-and-roller with cases of beer and a screaming entourage, you’d have been severely disappointed. David was soft spoken, calm, and extremely polite. He was filled with ideas about the shoot. When he heard that I had photographed Buster Keaton, one of Bowie’s heroes, we definitely became friends…

As the day and early evening progressed, we would change the colors of our backgrounds and he would come out dressed differently, but never in the sexual and suggestive outfits I had expected. It seemed with each new change of clothes a new character appeared, each with its own story. I’d pick up my camera ready to shoot, and he would abruptly withdraw, explaining he’d forgotten something, rushing back to the dressing room. Twenty minutes later he’d appear in a brand new outfit. It was more than frustrating, not being able to shoot some amazing looks, but fortunately there were a lot of changes, and a lot of great ones were caught. At one point later in the session we wanted to do a series of close headshots for magazines articles. We decided together that green was the worst possible color for a magazine cover; we laughed, and had a blast shooting with one. Eventually in 1976 it did become a cover for People magazine! One of his favorite outfits for the day was a jacket and a black hat which accentuated his red hair. We brought a large studio mirror outside and placed it near a white brick wall. David sat on the ground and started writing on it. That became an album cover in November 2014 for the “Nothing Has Changed” series.

As time progressed, I took the last photo at 4 AM in the morning of Bowie on his bike. I lit it with the headlights of a car….

There were other calls at other times. In 1986 my family and I were walking out the door to have our first real three-month vacation in France when David rang us up and asked if I could do a tour. It was hard to decline. Working with genius is exhilarating. Working with Bowie was unforgettable.

Text by Steve Schapiro, excerpted from the book’s afterword.
Bowie: Photographs by Steve Schapiro, published by powerHouse Books