Exclusive behind the scenes photos from David Bowie’s 1995 shoot for huH magazine!

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In September 1995 David Bowie was featured on the cover of huH magazine – interviewed by huH’s Managing Editor Dean Kuipers and photographed by Kevin Kerslake. huH was a subscription-only monthly music magazine produced by Raygun Publishing – designed by Jérôme Curchod with Vaughan Oliver of v23 as Creative Director and Mark Blackwell as Editorial Director. The cover (above) was designed by Vaughan Oliver.

See scans of the feature below…

The photo shoot happened at Smashbox Studios in Culver City, California during the summer of ’95.

Raygun’s Mark Blackwell has very kindly let us publish previously-unseen shots from his ’90s Polaroid diary of Bowie being put into a cage for the shoot, as well as shots of DB with the huH and Raygun team below.

Above three shots (from left): Randy Bookasta (Executive Editor of Raygun magazine), David Bowie, Mark Blackwell (Executive Editor of huH & Editorial Director, Raygun Publishing) and Marvin Scott Jarrett (Publisher & Editor-In-Chief, Raygun Publishing), Black & white group photo by Kevin Kerslake. Color group shots from Mark Blackwell’s Polaroid Captiva diary.

Below, previously unpublished Polaroids of David getting into the cage for the shoot,  Kevin Kerslake on the left in the top one. photos © Mark Blackwell.

I asked Mark Blackwell about his memories of working with David for both Raygun (which was named after the lyric from “Moonage Daydream”) and huH….

“We loved working with Bowie – and we did many cover stories and other projects with him over the years – because we always knew we’d end up with much more than just the standard thing of a singer or a musician hyping whatever their latest project happened to be and answering the same questions every other magazine would be asking in the exact same way. With Bowie it would always become some grand artistic collaboration of sorts – the photos would be unique and beautiful and the interview would be deep and thought-provoking. We’d match him up with great writers like Dean Kuipers and amazing photographers like Kevin Kerslake or Ian Davies, and magic would always happen, because he was a true artist and one of those rare souls you could honestly call a ‘visionary.’ He took these collaborations with us very seriously, never approaching them as simply something he ‘had to do to promote his new record’ – plus he had a great sense of humor that always came through.”

“As far as this particular day at Smashbox goes, one thing that very much stands out is that over the course of all my years of writing and editing music stories and going to photo shoots, I’m almost positive this was the only time I ever actually stepped into a photographer’s shot with an artist during an actual shoot. I’m guessing it’s the same for Marvin Jarrett and Randy Bookasta – we just never did that because we all probably felt it would seem unprofessional or intrusive or just plain silly. In this case, however, Bowie cheerfully invited us to come over and jump into a shot with him, and it really does reflect that sense of warmth and collaboration he exuded – making the people around him a part of his artistic process. In person he was exactly as you’d hope he’d be: charming, suave, smart, and super cool. I’m so glad we did it, because I treasure these photos with him, what a cool memento to have from this era.”

Many thanks to Mark Blackwell and to Kevin Kerslake for the excellent photos from this shoot.