Denis O'Regan
Encyclopedia
Denis O'Regan is a renowned English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 rock photographer. His imagery is particularly associated with the punk
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...

 movement, Queen
Queen (band)
Queen are a British rock band formed in London in 1971, originally consisting of Freddie Mercury , Brian May , John Deacon , and Roger Taylor...

, David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...

, and Duran Duran
Duran Duran
Duran Duran are an English band, formed in Birmingham in 1978. They were one of the most successful bands of the 1980s and a leading band in the MTV-driven "Second British Invasion" of the United States...

, and O'Regan has photographed everyone from AC/DC to ZZ Top, documenting Punk, New Romanticism, Grunge, and Heavy Metal along the way. O'Regan has undertaken many European, US, and World tours, worked as official photographer at Live Aid
Live Aid
Live Aid was a dual-venue concert that was held on 13 July 1985. The event was organized by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to raise funds for relief of the ongoing Ethiopian famine. Billed as the "global jukebox", the event was held simultaneously in Wembley Stadium in London, England, United Kingdom ...

 and the Concert For Diana
Concert for Diana
Concert for Diana was a concert held at the then new Wembley Stadium in London, England, United Kingdom in honour of Diana, Princess of Wales, on 1 July 2007, which would have been her 46th birthday; 31 August that year brought the 10th anniversary of her death...

, and travelled as official photographer to David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...

, Duran Duran
Duran Duran
Duran Duran are an English band, formed in Birmingham in 1978. They were one of the most successful bands of the 1980s and a leading band in the MTV-driven "Second British Invasion" of the United States...

, Rolling Stones, The Who
The Who
The Who are an English rock band formed in 1964 by Roger Daltrey , Pete Townshend , John Entwistle and Keith Moon . They became known for energetic live performances which often included instrument destruction...

, Queen
Queen (band)
Queen are a British rock band formed in London in 1971, originally consisting of Freddie Mercury , Brian May , John Deacon , and Roger Taylor...

, KISS
KISS (band)
Kiss is an American rock band formed in New York City in January 1973. Well-known for its members' face paint and flamboyant stage outfits, the group rose to prominence in the mid to late 1970s on the basis of their elaborate live performances, which featured fire breathing, blood spitting,...

, Europe
Europe (band)
Europe is a Swedish rock band formed in Upplands Väsby in 1979 under the name Force by vocalist Joey Tempest, guitarist John Norum and drummer Tony Reno. Although widely associated with glam metal, the band's sound incorporates heavy metal and hard rock elements...

, Neil Diamond
Neil Diamond
Neil Leslie Diamond is an American singer-songwriter with a career spanning over five decades from the 1960s until the present....

, Bee Gees
Bee Gees
The Bee Gees are a musical group that originally comprised three brothers: Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb. The trio was successful for most of their 40-plus years of recording music, but they had two distinct periods of exceptional success: as a pop act in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and as a...

, Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd were an English rock band that achieved worldwide success with their progressive and psychedelic rock music. Their work is marked by the use of philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows. Pink Floyd are one of the most commercially...

 and Thin Lizzy
Thin Lizzy
Thin Lizzy are an Irish hard rock band formed in Dublin in 1969. Two of the founding members, drummer Brian Downey and bass guitarist/vocalist Phil Lynott met while still in school. Lynott assumed the role of frontman and led them throughout their recording career of thirteen studio albums...

. His work has been widely published and exhibited.

Early years

Born in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 in November 1953, O'Regan grew up in Barnes, West London and attended St Benedict's School
St Benedict's School
St Benedict's School is a co-educational independent Roman Catholic school situated in Ealing, West London. The school is part of Ealing Abbey and is governed by the Abbot and monks of Ealing. As the only day school of the English Houses of the English Benedictine Congregation, the school does not...

, following which he was offered a place at nearby Ealing Art College
Ealing Art College
Ealing Art College was 'Ealing Technical College & School of Art', a further education institution on St Mary's Road, Ealing, London, England. The site today is the Ealing campus of University of West London...

, famously attended a generation before by rock elite Freddie Mercury
Freddie Mercury
Freddie Mercury was a British musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist of the rock band Queen. As a performer, he was known for his flamboyant stage persona and powerful vocals over a four-octave range...

, Keith Richards
Keith Richards
Keith Richards is an English musician, songwriter, and founding member of the Rolling Stones. Rolling Stone magazine said Richards had created "rock's greatest single body of riffs", and placed him as the "10th greatest guitarist of all time." Fourteen songs written by Richards and songwriting...

, Ronnie Wood, Ray Davies
Ray Davies
Ray Davies, CBE is an English rock musician. He is best known as lead singer and songwriter for the Kinks, which he led with his younger brother, Dave...

 and Pete Townshend
Pete Townshend
Peter Dennis Blandford "Pete" Townshend is an English rock guitarist, vocalist, songwriter and author, known principally as the guitarist and songwriter for the rock group The Who, as well as for his own solo career...

. However, parental influence prevailed and he was temporarily diverted towards a position in the City of London
City of London
The City of London is a small area within Greater London, England. It is the historic core of London around which the modern conurbation grew and has held city status since time immemorial. The City’s boundaries have remained almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, and it is now only a tiny part of...

 as a trainee broker at Willis Faber & Dumas
Willis Group Holdings
Willis Group Holdings is a global insurance broker headquartered in the Willis Building, London, United Kingdom. It has more than 400 offices in 120 countries, and approximately 17,000 employees...

, then as a trainee underwriter at Lloyd's of London
Lloyd's of London
Lloyd's, also known as Lloyd's of London, is a British insurance and reinsurance market. It serves as a partially mutualised marketplace where multiple financial backers, underwriters, or members, whether individuals or corporations, come together to pool and spread risk...

.

Prior to this orthodox career move, O'Regan had seen The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...

 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
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...

 and Queen. Inspired by seeing Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin were an English rock band, active in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Formed in 1968, they consisted of guitarist Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham...

’s Jimmy Page
Jimmy Page
James Patrick "Jimmy" Page, OBE is an English multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and record producer. He began his career as a studio session guitarist in London and was subsequently a member of The Yardbirds from 1966 to 1968, after which he founded the English rock band Led Zeppelin.Jimmy Page...

 perform at Alexandra Palace
Alexandra Palace
Alexandra Palace is a building in North London, England. It stands in Alexandra Park, in an area between Hornsey, Muswell Hill and Wood Green...

, 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
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...

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

O’Regan has worked in the capacity of official photographer for numerous rock band
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

s on a global scale since the dawn of the 1980s. He was hired as official photographer for Thin Lizzy
Thin Lizzy
Thin Lizzy are an Irish hard rock band formed in Dublin in 1969. Two of the founding members, drummer Brian Downey and bass guitarist/vocalist Phil Lynott met while still in school. Lynott assumed the role of frontman and led them throughout their recording career of thirteen studio albums...

 in 1980 (and still retains that distinction), touring with the band in 1980, 1981, and 1982. Other bands also undertaking European and World tours include David Bowie in 1983, 1987, and 1990; The Rolling Stones in 1982; Duran Duran in 1984; Spandau Ballet
Spandau Ballet
Spandau Ballet are a British band formed in London in the late 1970s. Initially inspired by, and an integral part of, the New Romantic fashion, their music has featured a mixture of funk, jazz, soul and synthpop. They were one of the most successful bands of the 1980s, achieving ten Top Ten singles...

 and Neil Diamond
Neil Diamond
Neil Leslie Diamond is an American singer-songwriter with a career spanning over five decades from the 1960s until the present....

 in 1985; Queen
Queen (band)
Queen are a British rock band formed in London in 1971, originally consisting of Freddie Mercury , Brian May , John Deacon , and Roger Taylor...

 in 1986; Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd were an English rock band that achieved worldwide success with their progressive and psychedelic rock music. Their work is marked by the use of philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows. Pink Floyd are one of the most commercially...

 in 1994; KISS
KISS (band)
Kiss is an American rock band formed in New York City in January 1973. Well-known for its members' face paint and flamboyant stage outfits, the group rose to prominence in the mid to late 1970s on the basis of their elaborate live performances, which featured fire breathing, blood spitting,...

 in 2008. During this period he was commissioned to shoot shows that set attendance records for the U.K., Southern Hemisphere, and Eastern Bloc.

O’Regan was appointed official photographer for Live Aid
Live Aid
Live Aid was a dual-venue concert that was held on 13 July 1985. The event was organized by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to raise funds for relief of the ongoing Ethiopian famine. Billed as the "global jukebox", the event was held simultaneously in Wembley Stadium in London, England, United Kingdom ...

 at Wembley Stadium
Wembley Stadium
The original Wembley Stadium, officially known as the Empire Stadium, was a football stadium in Wembley, a suburb of north-west London, standing on the site now occupied by the new Wembley Stadium that opened in 2007...

 in 1985, and in co-operation with Bob Geldof
Bob Geldof
Robert Frederick Zenon "Bob" Geldof, KBE is an Irish singer, songwriter, author, occasional actor and political activist. He rose to prominence as the lead singer of the Irish rock band The Boomtown Rats in the late 1970s and early 1980s alongside the punk rock movement. The band had hits with his...

 produced the record-selling commemorative book. He also shot Live 8
Live 8
Live 8 was a string of benefit concerts that took place on 2 July 2005, in the G8 states and in South Africa. They were timed to precede the G8 Conference and summit held at the Gleneagles Hotel in Auchterarder, Scotland from 6–8 July 2005; they also coincided with the 20th anniversary of Live Aid...

 in Hyde Park
Hyde Park, London
Hyde Park is one of the largest parks in central London, United Kingdom, and one of the Royal Parks of London, famous for its Speakers' Corner.The park is divided in two by the Serpentine...

 as an official photographer in 2005. Record album covers featuring his live work include Queen’s Live Magic
Live Magic
Live Magic is a live compilation album by British rock band Queen. It was recorded at various 1986 live shows during the European Magic Tour and released on December 1, 1986. However, it was not released in the United States until August 1996. It received strong criticism by fans, due to the heavy...

, Live at Wembley '86
Live at Wembley '86
Live at Wembley '86 is a double compact disc live album by English rock band Queen.It was recorded live on Saturday July 12, 1986 during the Magic Tour at Wembley Stadium in London, England and released on May 26, 1992...

, Queen on Fire - Live at the Bowl
Queen on Fire - Live at the Bowl
Queen on Fire - Live at the Bowl is a double compact disc live album by English band Queen released on October 25, 2004 in Europe and on November 9, 2004 in the US....

, Knebworth '90
Concerts at Knebworth House
The grounds of Knebworth House near the village of Knebworth in Hertfordshire, England has become a major venue for open air rock and pop concerts since 1974 when The Allman Brothers Band attracted 60,000 at the first large concert held at the venue....

, Thin Lizzy
Thin Lizzy
Thin Lizzy are an Irish hard rock band formed in Dublin in 1969. Two of the founding members, drummer Brian Downey and bass guitarist/vocalist Phil Lynott met while still in school. Lynott assumed the role of frontman and led them throughout their recording career of thirteen studio albums...

'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
Decade: Greatest Hits
Decade – Greatest Hits is a greatest hits album by Duran Duran, released on November 15, 1989 .The remix single "Burning the Ground" was released to radio to promote this album; it was created by producer John Jones mixing snippets of the band's biggest hits from the previous decade into a new...

, and the Rolling Stones' Forty Licks
Forty Licks
Forty Licks is a double compilation album by The Rolling Stones. A 40-year career-spanning retrospective, Forty Licks is notable for being the first retrospective to combine the band's formative Decca/London era of the 1960s, now licensed by ABKCO Records , with their self-owned post-1970 material,...

.

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
Sing Blue Silver
Sing Blue Silver is a documentary about Duran Duran's 1983-1984 World Tour directed by Michael Collins. A sixty-minute edited version of the documentary was aired on MTV under the title Blue Silver....

, and his work has featured in publications such as Time, Life, Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...

, "Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...

", "GQ" and Photo
Photo (French magazine)
Photo is a French magazine , about photography, previously published 10 times a year by Hachette Filipacchi Médias, and currently owned by Magweb. It concentrates on the artistic aspects of photography, rather than technical aspects...

as well as every UK national newspaper, and pop and rock magazines across the world. Other clients include Pepsi, HBO, MTV, and VH1.

In 1999 Peter Blake (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
Tony Parsons
Tony Parsons is the name of:* Tony Parsons , Canadian news anchor* Tony Parsons , novelist and arts critic...

 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
Paula Yates
Paula Elizabeth Yates was a British television presenter and writer, best known for her work on two television programmes, The Tube and The Big Breakfast.-Early life:...

. One of Keith Richards' favourite O'Regan photographs - a live shot with Charlie Watts - is featured in Keith's 2010 autobiography 'Life'.

Digital age

It is widely accepted that O’Regan pioneered the use of autofocus
Autofocus
An autofocus optical system uses a sensor, a control system and a motor to focus fully automatic or on a manually selected point or area. An electronic rangefinder has a display instead of the motor; the adjustment of the optical system has to be done manually until indication...

 cameras (in 1987) and digital camera
Digital camera
A digital camera is a camera that takes video or still photographs, or both, digitally by recording images via an electronic image sensor. It is the main device used in the field of digital photography...

s in the late 1990s. He digitally shot and uploaded photos to national press from the backstage area of the MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....

 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 Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...

, The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

and the Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...

. In the same year O’Regan founded one of the UK’s first legal music download
Music download
A music download is the transferral of music from an Internet-facing computer or website to a user's local computer. This term encompasses both legal downloads and downloads of copyright material without permission or payment...

 sites, which sold a milestone 25,000 tracks in the months prior to the Millennium
Millennium
A millennium is a period of time equal to one thousand years —from the Latin phrase , thousand, and , year—often but not necessarily related numerically to a particular dating system....

 (four years before the launch of Apple's iTunes
ITunes
iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....

 store). Interestingly he grew up in Barnes, West London, at the same time as Tim Berners-Lee
Tim Berners-Lee
Sir Timothy John "Tim" Berners-Lee, , also known as "TimBL", is a British computer scientist, MIT professor and the inventor of the World Wide Web...

, inventor of the World Wide Web.

An avid user of Apple products since 1987 - and Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop is a graphics editing program developed and published by Adobe Systems Incorporated.Adobe's 2003 "Creative Suite" rebranding led to Adobe Photoshop 8's renaming to Adobe Photoshop CS. Thus, Adobe Photoshop CS5 is the 12th major release of Adobe Photoshop...

 since 1990 - O'Regan continues to exploit the cutting edge of technology. He uses Nikon cameras - currently the D3S - Apple i7 iMacs, MacBook Pro, and various iPhones and iPods.

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
Live 8
Live 8 was a string of benefit concerts that took place on 2 July 2005, in the G8 states and in South Africa. They were timed to precede the G8 Conference and summit held at the Gleneagles Hotel in Auchterarder, Scotland from 6–8 July 2005; they also coincided with the 20th anniversary of Live Aid...

 in London's Hyde Park
Hyde Park, London
Hyde Park is one of the largest parks in central London, United Kingdom, and one of the Royal Parks of London, famous for its Speakers' Corner.The park is divided in two by the Serpentine...

 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. Denis was appointed official photographer for the 1996-1999 MTV European Music Awards, 2006-2009 Download festivals, Kylie Minogue
Kylie Minogue
Kylie Ann Minogue, OBE - often known simply as Kylie - is an Australian singer, recording artist, songwriter, and actress. After beginning her career as a child actress on Australian television, she achieved recognition through her role in the television soap opera Neighbours, before commencing...

's 2006/2007 UK Showgirl tour, and Prince William and Prince Harry's 2007 Concert For Diana
Concert for Diana
Concert for Diana was a concert held at the then new Wembley Stadium in London, England, United Kingdom in honour of Diana, Princess of Wales, on 1 July 2007, which would have been her 46th birthday; 31 August that year brought the 10th anniversary of her death...

 at the new Wembley Stadium, where he took all the official backstage portraits

Limited edition books are in production with Duran Duran
Duran Duran
Duran Duran are an English band, formed in Birmingham in 1978. They were one of the most successful bands of the 1980s and a leading band in the MTV-driven "Second British Invasion" of the United States...

, Queen
Queen (band)
Queen are a British rock band formed in London in 1971, originally consisting of Freddie Mercury , Brian May , John Deacon , and Roger Taylor...

 - and KISS
KISS (band)
Kiss is an American rock band formed in New York City in January 1973. Well-known for its members' face paint and flamboyant stage outfits, the group rose to prominence in the mid to late 1970s on the basis of their elaborate live performances, which featured fire breathing, blood spitting,...

, with whom O'Regan toured as official photographer on their record-breaking 2008 'KISS Alive 35' tour
KISS Alive/35 World Tour
The Kiss Alive/35 World Tour was a concert tour by Kiss to celebrate Kiss' 35th anniversary. It was the band's first major tour since the Rock the Nation Tour in 2004. On the tour, Kiss played in New Zealand for the first time since the Alive/Worldwide Tour in 1997, as well as performing in Europe...

. Denis O'Regan continues to work closely with Italian legend Gianni Nannini - with whom he is touring in 2011 - and longtime friends Europe
Europe (band)
Europe is a Swedish rock band formed in Upplands Väsby in 1979 under the name Force by vocalist Joey Tempest, guitarist John Norum and drummer Tony Reno. Although widely associated with glam metal, the band's sound incorporates heavy metal and hard rock elements...

. In the Summer of 2011 he shot his first Glastonbury festival as official photographer.

Personal life

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

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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