[2] Leatherdale first served as Robert Mapplethorpe's office manager for a while and was photographed in the nude by the master, grabbing a rope with his right hand and holding a rabbit in his left.
He soon became a darling of the then-vibrant club scene and the fashionable media: Interview, Details, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and Elle Decor presented his work.
His models were the unknown but exceptional ones – like Larissa, Claudia Summers or Ruby Zebra – or well-known artists – like Madonna, Keith Haring, Andy Warhol, Winston Tong and Divine, Trisha Brown, Lisa Lyon, Andrée Putman, Kathy Acker, Jodie Foster, and fellow photographer John Dugdale.
For quite a while Leatherdale remained in Mapplethorpe's shadow, but was soon discovered as a creative force in his own right by Christian Michelides, the founder of Molotov Art Gallery in Vienna.
Based in an ancient house in the centre of the old city, he began photographing the diverse and remarkable people there, from the holy men to celebrities, from royalty to tribals, carefully negotiating his way among some of India's most elusive figures to make his portraits.
His pictures include princesses and boatmen, movie stars and circus performers, and street beggars and bishops, mothers and children in traditional garb.