UNIT 57: PHOTOGRAPHY- David Bailey Research

David Bailey is a British fashion photographer as well as a portrait photographer. He has worked for British vogue and many other extremely famous and well known places and people such as the Beatles and the Kray twins. He was born on the 2nd January 1938, was born in Leyton but grew up in East Ham. He is now currently 78 years old and lives in Leytonstone, London. He was brought up in a regular working class family with his mother being a machinist, and his father a tailer. He has been married 3 times before and at now he is with his fourth wife, he has three children who live in London along with Bailey. Back in 1994 he introduced David Bailey Photography which is his own online website which has grown to represent some the most highly well-known and respected clients in the United States. Some of his most famous pieces of work are known as 'Xman' 'Shoe Tongue' 'Poppy Heads' and loads more. Examples of them in order are below. These images below are some of his best work which is why they are very famous. However, personally the first 2 images are a bit odd and do not appeal to me as interesting. Yet the last photo of 'Poppy Heads' is quite amusing and intriguing. In his early years he developed a love for natural history and that is what led to his photography. Bailey has dyslexia and motor skill disorder dyspraxia which caused him problems in school but he left school on his 15th birthday and became a copy boy at Fleet Street offices of the Yorkshire Post. He got called up for the National Service in 1956 and he had a trumpet which influenced me to buy a Rolleiflex camera. In 1958 when he was demobbed from the National Service, he decided to pursue a career in photography and brought himself a Canon rangefinder camera. He applied for aa place at London College of Printing but he didn't get in because of his previous school record so he became a second assistant in Charlotte Mews, however later on he got an interview with photographer John French.


Fashion played a big part in influencing David to become a photographer, this is because he began working with Jaeger in the late 1950s and other fashion photographers e.g. Norman Parkinson and therefore in 1962 he became commissioned by Vogue. He has a passion and a love for Picasso's work and get inspired from him, also he is really fond of Marcel Duchamp's work. Below is one of Picasso's paintings which is of flowers, David got inspiration from this photo and incorporated some of his style and work into Baileys 'Poppy Heads' work. Below is an image of Marcel Duchamp's work which has additionally inspired Bailey. Bailey has been dazzled by a few books, two of his favourite are 'Kim' by Rudyard Kipling and 'Delacroix's journal', however 'Delacroix's journal' made him realise that things are the same as they have always been and always will be the same e.g. people will still be grumpy and people will still graffiti beautiful landmarks and buildings. Bailey's works of art are located and placed in some of the most amazing art museums e.g. Tate Modern, Victoria and Albert Museum, Show Studio, Moderna Museet, Fahey Klein Gallery, Bonhams London and frequent other museums. In various places like the National Gallery, Milan Museum, Tate Modern, National Portrait Gallery etc Bailey's work is presented through his exhibition called 'Stardust'. When Bailey was asked about his technique for his 'Baileys Democracy' nude project he voiced that "All that worrying about pony lighting, making people look like landscapes or rocks. If i wanted to photograph a f**king rock, I'd photograph a f**king rock". He commonly uses white background's, although this isn't original as Cecil Beaton and Richard Avedon use them frequently but Bailey was the one who really started this trend in 1965 for his 'Box Of Pin Ups' project where he mixed white background with harsh lighting, high contrast painting and tonal confining to give a sharp edge to his images. He stripped his backgrounded the isolate his subjects in the images, cropping them to tight compositions at times. His background and upbringing could effect and play a role in the development of his photographic emotion here. When Bailey takes his images he initially spends around 30 minutes engaging with his capturers and talks to them about general life and gets to know them and then only takes about 5 minutes to take the photo. He does this so he gets to know the individuals story and so he can capture the image but so it tells a story as well.





My chosen photographer who really caught my eye the first time i saw his images and who is one of my favourite photographers has got to be: Martin Parr because of his use of radiant colours, lively and animated photos. I love the way that his images are young and colourful and give some illusion of pop art because of his bold contrast of colour against dull backgrounds. All his images speak to me and tell a story, none are dull and use gloomy, ghastly colours which is why i like Parr's images. He is a British documentary photographer, phonebook collector and photojournalist although, he is really known for his photographic projects that take an intimate literal, intimate and anthropological look of modern life. He has documented in particular the wealth of the Western world and the social classes of England. His dominant projects have been: The Cost of Living, The Last Resort, Small World and Common Sense. Martin is a member of 'Magnum Photos' and has been since 1994, he has featured in about 80 exhibitions worldwide and has had about 40 solo photo-books published. Parr's aesthetic is close up and looks through micro lens to explore saturated colour.


These photographs by Martin Parr stand out because of these exquisite use of luminous and florescent  colours. These 6 are my favourite because they each tell a story and are all marking something to do with Britain or Italy. Parr's image are usually cultural e.g. The Leaning Tower of Piza, The British Flag in a vast majority of images, British swimming trunks, The Sun newspaper. The majority of his images are based on a beach or near the sea side capturing sunbathers and nude shots of people on the beach or children playing in the sun. Almost all his beach images show a bright sunny day in the background with only a few clouds which emphasis Parr's mood and emotion. Likewise, Parr does photograph in black and white like Bailey does and yet both photographers tell a story through there b&w images. As well as both using b&w images, Parr uses a similar style to Bailey in the sense that they both use bright colours to enhance and contrast what would be a plain and dull image. However, the image below makes me feel dull and boring and doesn't tell a story. Its very simple and plain and maybe should include a British flag tea cloth or a British flag coming out of the bread as this is what would make it seem like a Martin Parr photograph, yet it doesn't have an of Parr's style incorporated into it.