David Bowie, London, 1981

I think I was influenced to start the Polaroid collection by Andy Warhol. When I met him in London, he was shooting Polaroids around the parties. And I was just intrigued by this strange looking camera and these photos that it would just spit out instantly, and they would develop within about one minute. I took the Polaroid camera everywhere with me in my pocket. So, if there was somebody quite famous, I would whip it out and say, ‘Let's do a Polaroid.’ This Polaroid of David Bowie was taken at Regine’s nightclub at a party in the afternoon. I went up to him and said, ‘Could I take a Polaroid of you?’ And he said, ‘Yes, sure, let's just go over here behind the bushes.’ So, we went and shot the Polaroid. He asked me my name and I said, Robert Rosen, and he replied ‘Robert Rosen with the looking glass bow tie,’ because I was wearing one of Andrew Logan's glass mirror bow ties. Anyway, the Polaroid photo is developing and I'm holding it really nervously thinking any minute Bowie is going to remember me as that rude photographer at the Blitz club. The Polaroid photo developed and my thumbprint is at the top from where I was holding it so tightly. I showed it to him and said, ‘I'm sorry, look my thumbprints on it, I think we better do another one.’ He said, ‘No, I like it. It's art.’