1. no longer part of the competition. You just become like
Easter or something. In a hundred years time though,
when you’re dead, it won’t matter because it will just
be a body of work. Nobody really knows when
Michelangelo created the David in his life, they just
know that he did it.’
It’s clear that, from an early age, Bailey was always in search
of a creative outlet. ‘If I hadn’t become a photographer, I
would have been a painter or a filmmaker or something’
he explains. As a youngster growing up during the war in the
East End of London, Bailey found an escape in the wonders
of cinema. ‘That’s all I ever saw – Hollywood movies
and bombed buildings. I’ve always been fascinated with
Hitler because I was brought up with Hitler and when
I was a kid, there was a cinema near us that showed
Disney films and Hitler fucking bombed it. I thought
he’d killed all of the Walt Disney characters, so I’ve
always been pissed off with him. Later on, I came to
think of Walt Disney as one of the greatest artists of the
twentieth century, up there with Picasso. Anyone that
can take a mouse and make it fucking sing and dance
has got to be a genius. The genius of making a mouse
talk and sing and dance; it was fucking unbelievable.
Can you imagine that as a kid, having never been to
the cinema and seeing a talking fucking mouse? Pure
genius.’
This early exposure to cinema stuck with Bailey and he
went on to make several of his own films, including a
number of documentaries, one of which featured the
artist Andy Warhol who Bailey had known for some time.
The project wasn’t without its share of controversy. ‘The
idea was to make a cluster of eight documentaries,
but the Warhol one got banned. Then I got in trouble
with the unions who said I was a feature director and
commercial director, not a documentary director, and
‘There’s nothing worse than toothache’ declares
David Bailey, set tling into the sofa opposite me in his
Clerkenwell studio. ‘There’s nothing you can do. It’s the
only disease you get where it’s not there and it still aches.
I don’t think I needed it out, but you have to trust these
so-called professionals don’t you?’ Despite having been
kept awake half the night by the absent tooth, and then
having his journey here disrupted by the masses of traffic
caused by a tube strike, Bailey seems otherwise fairly content
as he tucks into a croissant with jam, sharing the odd titbit
with his dog Pig.
The main thing – possibly the only thing – that you need
to know about David Bailey is that he is a photographer.
Whilst it’s fair to say that anyone with even the slightest
interest in modern culture is likely to already be well aware
of this fact, for many the name David Bailey is still inextri-
cably linked to the ‘swinging sixties’. ‘Everyone gets stuck
with something; people like to put people into pigeon
holes. I hate when people talk about the sixties as ‘the
good old days’, you know? Fucking idiots. If anybody my
age now starts talking about the sixties, I walk away.
They’re just old now; all they have are good memories.’
Bailey remains extremely busy, shooting for various
magazines, releasing books and overseeing his ever-thriving
print sales, though the focus of his work has changed over
the years. ‘I still probably do more than anyone I know.
I do something every day of my life, weekends as well.
I don’t know if I take better pictures now, but I take
different pictures. I haven’t really done fashion for ages;
I still do Vogue and GQ, and I’m doing a cover for
Bombay Vogue which should be fun. In the last six months
I’ve worked more for Vogue than anybody else in this
country, but you wouldn’t realise that. I think you get
to a stage where people pass over your pictures and say
‘Oh, that’s Bailey’ and then just turn over, like you’re
DAVID BAILEY
The main thing – possibly the only thing – that you need to know about
David Bailey is that he is a photographer. Just don’t mention the sixties...
Anyone that can take a mouse and make it
fucking sing and dance has got to be a genius.
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HeroesMAIN.indd 34 06/10/2009 15:51
3. they made me take my name off of the films. They
apologised two years later and said I could put my name
back but it’s a bit late two years later. Unions were
pretty awful back then. Totally immoral; immoral, lying
and envious. The worst kind of working class attitude,
like ‘Why has he got it and I haven’t?’. They probably
haven’t changed that much either.’ Despite various other
opportunitiestodirect,Baileyoptedtoconcentrateonhisfirstlove,
photography. ‘I saw a Cartier-Bresson picture of four
Indian girls in the Himalayas and it turned
photography around for me. I saw that and realised that
photography could be as good as painting artistically.
That’s what convinced me. Photography can be an art,
painting can be an art, but I’m not sure film can. Art has
to come from a single person. When it becomes about a
committee, it’s like taking a fashion picture nowadays.’
Though Bailey opted out of pursuing a full time career
in filmmaking, he was hugely successful as a director of
commercials. ‘I started doing commercials in 1965. I was
good at directing commercials - my commercials were
pretty diverse and I probably made three or four hundred
in all. I did one every two weeks in the eighties. I could
understand commercials; they gave me a script and I
could interpret the script and create my own storyboard.
I never understood still advertising because they’d give
me a picture and say ‘Do you think you can do this?’.
Of course I could do it, but there’s no interpretation
involved because they really want what’s on that page. The
client has seen it and thought ‘Yeah, that’s what I
want’. It looks like a Helmut Newton - why don’t you
give it to Helmut? I never understood that; it’s sort of
madness, bringing you a picture by someone else and
saying ‘Can you do this?’. The answer is ‘yes’, but (a)
Why don’t you get Helmut to do it? and (b) It’s just
copying a picture. All the best advertising is usually done by
photographers, like Bruce Webber or Terry Richardson
who just do their own thing, which is great because it
still looks like their pictures.’
Whilst Bailey’s disdain for the current state of fashion
photography is well documented, it was as a fashion
photographer that he made his name, though more through
a love of photography than fashion. ‘I chose to do fashion
because it was the only thing that was slightly creative
and the only kind of photography that you could earn
a living from. Fashion then was quite creative, now it’s
all just a copy of the one before; everyone just copies
Steven Meisel or whoever. Now fashion isn’t
photography, it’s more illustration. Most photographers
are monkeys anyway; they don’t talk to you, they just
set their lights up. With a lot of fashion photography
now, the photographer doesn’t even direct the model; it’s
all done by a stylist. I don’t work like that though; I do
everything.’ This hands-on approach to his photographs is
perhaps in part responsible for the uncluttered nature of much
of his work. ‘I try to avoid a style; if I’ve got a style it’s
simplicity. I think that’s the hardest thing to achieve.
Like Giacometti; any thinner, it wouldn’t have stood
up. It’s not adding to something, it’s getting something
and taking away from it. It’s like painting; it’s about
knowing when to stop. I never know when to stop in
painting so I’m not very good.’
Bailey’s approach to style is similar to his approach in
general – no nonsense, not over-thinking anything, just
getting on with it. ‘It’s always been the same; you do it
to try and do your best. That’s all you can do. I hate
the word industry, I’ve never considered myself as being
in an industry. You just get up every day and try not
to get bored. Photographers are always fucking moaning.
‘I could have done that!’ - well why fucking didn’t you?
People are always saying that to me, ‘I could have done
that’. I say ‘Yeah, and I could have invented the wheel
if someone hadn’t got there before me’. Or they’ll say
‘Oh, the magazine ruined my pictures!’. No it didn’t;
the pictures probably weren’t very good. ‘Oh, that Art
Director doesn’t use me because I don’t take coke with
him!; there’s always some reason why they’re not happy.
Just stop moaning and think how lucky you are that
you can do something you like doing. Somebody stupid
from a magazine said to me the other day ‘So and so’s
not very good at the moment because he hasn’t got a
good assistant to do the lighting for him’. You’d think,
being a photographer, they’d know about lighting. It’s like
being a painter and saying ‘He can’t do it at the
moment because he hasn’t got a window on the North side’.
That kind of thinking is just so bizarre but it’s kind of
It’s like painting; it’s about knowing when to stop.
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5. acceptable now. I think lots of photographers don’t
particularly like what they do, miserable cunts. I’ve got
one photographer friend, Bruce Webber, but I suppose
artisticallymytwobestfriendsareDamien(Hirst)andJulian
Schnabel. They don’t moan, and Bruce doesn’t moan.
I think it’s when you start calling it an industry that
people start treating it like a job.’
So which of his fellow photographers does Bailey hold
in high esteem? ‘Hundreds dead. Living, not too
many. It’s a difficult question; Avedon can do what
Cartier-Bressoncan’t,Cartier-BressoncandowhatAvedon
can’t. If I had to choose on overall photographer it would be
Walker Evans because he could do lots of different things.
Living, I’d say Robert Frank, Irving Penn - he’s still
alive, 93 - and William Egglestone. After that it
becomes difficult. I like Rankin; I think he’s funny. He’s
cheeky. It’s difficult to judge someone as young as Rankin
because it takes time to find out if someone is good
or just a flash in the pan. There are no real fashion
photographers now, nobody that takes pictures which
make you think ‘Oh, that’s Helmut’ or whoever. You’d
look at my pictures and you knew it was mine by the
girl - the look of the girl, not who she was - but now
photographers don’t do that. Some stylist does it, some
hairdresser and some make-up artist, and you end up
with a fucking camel. You end up with everything
looking like some fucking homosexual muse out of
American Vogue that Steven Meisel shot, with no
expression. Exactly the same picture but it might be in
a lunatic asylum or at the Tower of London or on a
spaceship but it’s always the same girl, even though it’s
not actually the same girl.’
Throughout the course of his lustrous career, Bailey has
encountered numerous iconic figures. Have there been any
in particular who made a lasting impression? ‘Naomi was
always fucking late. Three days late for one shoot.’
Anyone else? ‘I guess Sir Laurence Olivier. I shot
him on his 80th birthday and one of the first
movies I can remember seeing was Henry V, so I think a
combination of that and his whole life... I wasn’t scared
of him or anything, but I thought it was a privilege to
get to photograph him. He drank a couple of bottles of
champagne and he was 80! I was very impressed with
that.’ Whilst many of the photographs taken by Bailey of
celebrities over the years have since become iconic images, the
business of photographing celebrities has become a cut-throat,
multi-million pound industry, something which Bailey is
unsurprisingly dismissive of. ‘If you’re a moron and see it
as a money-making business then you should do that. I
don’t see it as that, I see it as what I do; it’s nothing to
do with the money. That way, I think you probably end
up earning more than people who care about the money.’
Whilst few would argue with the idea that there is a lack
of credibility in today’s paparazzi culture, there are other
more ‘lofty’ genres of photography which Bailey also finds
questionable. ‘I don’t really like photography where
someone standing next to me can do the same picture,
like ‘Look at that fantastic picture of someone with
his head blown off’. It’s not a fantastic picture, it’s a
fantastic document because the bloke’s got his head blown
off. If he hadn’t got his head blown off, you wouldn’t
even look at it. It’s not as if there’s any integrity in the
compositionorthelightoranything.It’snotthephotographer’s
decision; the decision is made afterwards. It’s the worst
form of existentialism, where they’re making something
when there’s nothing there. Fashion photography is
frivolous so it doesn’t matter selling prints of images, but
when you’re caring and you photograph in Africa and
the cost of the exhibition of that work could probably
feed a family out there for five years, and you’re putting
it on the wall for all these poncy, bourgeois liberals to
come and look at while they drink cheap white wine…
I have a bit of a problem with that. Then when it’s in a
magazine, you end up with a starving kid on the same
page as ‘Come to sunny fucking Baghdad’ or something.
It’s just ironic, all the juxtapositions of things.’
Advances in technology, the accessibility of
equipment and the popularity of sharing photographs via the
internet have all contributed towards a huge increase in the
number of photographs being taken each day, something which
Bailey seems to have mixed feelings about. ‘Everyone takes a
picture now and thinks it’s great. Photography has
become folk art; everybody in the world now can take
one great picture. If you gave cameras to chimpanzees,
Photography has become folk art; everybody in the world
now can take one great picture.
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7. they’d come up with a great picture as well. My ambition
is to do two great pictures - I think I’ve got the edge.’
With such a wealth of experience and talent, coupled with an
unquenchable work ethic, does someone like David
Bailey still make mistakes? ‘I hope so. Can you imagine
living in a world without accidents? My whole life’s based
on accidents. You have to control the accidents though;
art only exists because of accidents. That’s why I don’t
like digital, it takes away the accidents. You can’t really
make a mistake with digital. I use digital for reportage
but not much else.’
Outside of the realms of photography, Bailey has had
various heroes of his own over the years, mainly from the
worlds of art and cinema. ‘People like John Huston, Fred
Astaire, Chet Baker, and James Dean I guess, they
were all heroes of mine as I got older. Oh, and Picasso
of course. My hero all through my life was Picasso. He’s
the one that’s responsible for me because when I saw his
stuff when I was seventeen, I was so astounded by what
he did - I’m still astounded by what he did. He’s the one
person, from renaissance to now, that I can keep going
back to.’
Another artist who had a lasting effect on Bailey was the
surrealist painter Salvador Dali. ‘I did some pictures for
him for an issue of French Vogue he did, so I sort of got
to know him quite well. He was a complete ham; great
draughtsman but I’m not too sure about his paintings.’
During their acquaintance, Dali regaled Bailey with a
rather fantastic tale that clearly struck a chord with the
photographer. ‘The story goes that Dali kicked a poor
blind beggar in the street and ended up in front of a
judge. The judge said to him ‘Why would you do such
an awful thing to this poor blind beggar?’, and Dali
replied ‘Your Lordship, because he was privileged’. The
judge said ‘Privileged? In what way privileged?’. Dali
said ‘Well, he didn’t have the burden of seeing’. I love it
- ‘the burden of seeing’. It’s like the Heart of Darkness,
only it’s not ‘The horror, the horror!’, it’s ‘The seeing,
the seeing!’. I never sleep; my whole life is seeing. I see
things all the time, it drives me mad. I lie in bed and
there’s all these fucking pictures in the ceiling.’
Bailey continues his association with artists; his latest book,
released in July, is a collaboration with friend Damien
Hirst entitled ‘8 Minutes: Hirst & Bailey’ and consists of
a series of images of Hirst shot by Bailey over the course of 8
minutes. ‘8 Minutes is a continuation of
Democracy. 8 Minutes, Democracy, Pictures That Mark
Can Do - they’re all about the same idea really, the
banality of photography and the fact that anyone can do it.
A picture takes itself almost. There was no retouching,
I only did six clicks on each. I don’t do a lot of film,
that’s a myth - if I do a portrait on 10x8, I only use
about six sheets, on 5x4 maybe 10.’ Given the subject
matter of the book, Bailey seems unsure as to whether the
book will prove popular. ‘So many people are jealous of
Damien for a start, so I’ve lost 50% of my audience
already. It’s that English jealousy. Jonathan Miller called
England ‘this mean and bitter land’, and I think that’s
probably true. Everyone is so jealous of what somebody
else is doing or what somebody else has got. I don’t find
that so much in other countries.’
As for future work, plans are already under way on a
number of projects, including a series of books on India. ‘I was
going to do just one book on India but then realised that
I’d need about 5,000 years, so I’m going to do six books
- if I live long enough - concentrating on one area at a
time. I’m doing Delhi and I’ve already got 300 fucking
pages; the pictures are really great. They just happen,
books. I’ve also done a book of all the artists I’ve ever
photographed, all of the architects, painters,
photographers - there’s an unpublished picture in there of
Helmut in a fur coat which is quite nice.’
So, having been such a dominant force in photography for
several decades, redefining his art form, creating some of the
enduring images of the last forty years and inspiring countless
young photographers along the way, how does David Bailey
even begin to try and sum up such an immense, constantly
expanding legacy? ‘I don’t care. It doesn’t mean anything
to me all that shit.’
Philip Goodfellow
I never sleep; my whole life is seeing.
I see things all the time, it drives me mad.
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