Denis O'Regan

Early years

Born in London in November 1953, O'Regan grew up in Barnes, West London and attended St Benedict's School, following which he was offered a place at nearby Ealing Art College, famously attended a generation before by rock elite Freddie Mercury, Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood, Ray Davies and Pete Townshend. However, parental influence prevailed and he was temporarily diverted towards a position in the City of London as a trainee broker at Willis Faber & Dumas, then as a trainee underwriter at Lloyd's of London.

Prior to this orthodox career move, O'Regan had seen The Beatles at the Hammersmith Odeon in 1964 with his mother, Marie. In the early 1970s, he smuggled a camera into the same venue to photograph Paul McCartney and Queen. Inspired by seeing Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page perform at Alexandra Palace, and David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust at Hammersmith, O'Regan taught himself photography. He resigned his day job, toured Europe on a student rail pass, and returned to comprehensively document the readily-accessible Punk explosion in London. A major contributor to NME in the late Seventies, O'Regan combined his love of photography and travel when in the Eighties he toured with some of the world's top rock bands, including those he had grown up with as a fan.

World tours

As official photographer O’Regan undertook European and World tours with many artists, including Thin Lizzy in 1980, 1981, and 1982; David Bowie in 1983, 1987, and 1990; The Rolling Stones in 1982; Duran Duran in 1984; Spandau Ballet and Neil Diamond in 1985; Queen in 1986; Pink Floyd in 1994; KISS in 2008. During this period he was commissioned to shoot shows that set attendance records for the UK, Southern Hemisphere, and Eastern Bloc.

O’Regan was appointed official photographer for Live Aid at Wembley Stadium in 1985, and in co-operation with Bob Geldof produced the record-selling commemorative book. He also shot Live 8 in Hyde Park as an official photographer in 2005. Record album covers featuring his live work include Queen’s Live Magic, Live at Wembley '86, Queen on Fire - Live at the Bowl, Knebworth '90, Thin Lizzy's 'Wild One: the Very Best of Thin Lizzy' & 'Still Dangerous: Live at the Tower Theatre Philadelphia', Pink Floyd’s P*U*L*S*E, Sting's 'Bring On The Night', The Cure's 'Seventeen Seconds', Duran Duran's Decade: Greatest Hits, and the Rolling Stones' Forty Licks.

Published work

Denis O’Regan has produced numerous books, including Images Of Punk, Queen’s A Magic Tour and Queen – The Full Picture, David Bowie’s Serious Moonlight world tour, Duran Duran’s Sing Blue Silver, and his work has featured in publications such as Time, Life, Newsweek, "Rolling Stone", "GQ" and Photo as well as every UK national newspaper, and pop and rock magazines across the world. Other past clients include Pepsi, HBO, MTV, and VH1.

In 1999 Peter Blake (artist) (designer of the Beatles' Sergeant Pepper album cover) used a Denis O'Regan picture of Freddie Mercury in his design for the Royal Mail's Millennium first class postage stamp. O'Regan also received a dedication from UK 'lad-lit' writer Tony Parsons in his Punk eulogy 'The Boy Looked At Johnny', and features in diverse biographies and autobiographies including The Fun Starts Here by 'Mrs Geldof' Paula Yates. One of Keith Richards' favourite O'Regan photographs - a live shot with Charlie Watts - is featured in Richards' 2010 autobiography Life.

Digital age

It is widely accepted that O’Regan pioneered the use of autofocus cameras (in 1987) and digital cameras in the late 1990s. He digitally shot and uploaded photos to national press from the backstage area of the MTV 1998 European Music Awards, and Paul McCartney’s return to The Cavern in 1999. His pictures of the latter made the front pages the following morning, including The Daily Telegraph, The Times and the Daily Mail. In the same year O’Regan founded one of the UK’s first legal music download sites, which sold a milestone 25,000 tracks in the months prior to the Millennium (four years before the launch of Apple's iTunes store). Interestingly he grew up in Barnes, West London, at the same time as Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web.

Recent updates

O'Regan worked closely with Duran Duran during the 1980s and 1990s and reunited with the reformed band for rehearsals in 2003 and European tours in 2004/2005. In 2005 he photographed Live 8 in London's Hyde Park as official live photographer. His work has been exhibited at various venues including Proud Galleries, the Air Gallery, backstage at MTV's European Music Awards (London & Rome), backstage at Wembley Arena, and at Apple's flagship London Store on Regent Street. In 2016 he was the only non-US photographer featured in the Coachella 'Desert Trip' exhibition, which was attended by 100,000 visitors.

Denis was appointed official photographer for the 1996-1999 MTV European Music Awards; 2006-2009 Download festivals; Kylie Minogue's 2006/2007 UK Showgirl tour; Prince William and Prince Harry's 2007 Concert For Diana at the new Wembley Stadium, where he took all the official backstage portraits; Glastonbury 2011; and Coachella festival, which he has regularly covered for the organisers. Following the hugely successful 2016 'Fame Fashion Photography' David Bowie exhibition on London's Heddon Street in aid of Cancer Research, O'Regan took the 'David & I' exhibition on a UK tour, where he showed a collection of David Bowie photographs preceded by a Q&A.

A longtime charity supporter, in 2012 O'Regan collaborated with Damien Hirst on a U2 print for Cancer Research UK which raised £50,000 in 10 minutes, thanks to auctioneer Al Murray. He has held numerous events in aid of Rainbow Trust Children's Charity where guests such as Boy George, Peter Frampton and Tony Hadley performed acoustically, and donates a print every year to the Ace Africa charity. His limited edition Duran Duran book Careless Memories was published in 2015, and he continues to work closely with Italian legend Gianni Nannini and longtime friends Europe. In 2016 Denis travelled to the high Arctic with a team of explorers who walked to the North Pole to highlight global warming and the receding ice cap.

Personal life

Denis O’Regan lives in west London with his son Rory, born in February 2006.