PRESENTATION OUTLINE
David Royston Bailey, born 2 January 1938 is an English fashion & portrait photographer, arguably one of Britain's best. David Bailey was born in Leytonstone, East London, to Herbert Bailey, a tailor's cutter, and his wife, Gladys, a machinist. From the age of three he lived in East Ham. "I remember our house being bombed when I was three. It was in Leytonstone – Alfred Hitchcock was born in the next street – in the East End, and we moved to East Ham. Some days you went to school and some days you didn't, and some days at school you went into the shelter." The appropriation of his trumpet forced him to consider other creative outlets, and he bought a Rolleiflex camera. Suffering from undiagnosed dyslexia, he experienced problems at school.
In 1959, Bailey became a photographic assistant at the John French studio, and in May 1960, he was a photographer for John Cole's Studio Five before being contracted as a fashion photographer for British Vogue magazine later that year. [page needed] He also undertook a large amount of freelance work. Along with Terence Donovan and Brian Duffy, Bailey captured and helped create the 'Swinging London' of the 1960s: a culture of fashion and celebrity chic. Bailey's ascent at Vogue was meteoric. Within months he was shooting covers and, at the height of his productivity, he shot 800 pages of Vogue editorial in one year. Penelope Tree, a former girlfriend, described him as "the king lion on the Savannah: incredibly attractive, with a dangerous vibe. He was the electricity, the brightest, most powerful, most talented, most energetic force at the magazine".
"I've always tried to do pictures that don't date. I always go for simplicity."
