Thursday 22 November 2012

David Bailey Fashion Photography

Source (Google.com.pk)
David BaileFashion Photography Biography
British photographer known for his advertising, celebrity, and fashion photographs.

David Bailey, whose career in photography would eventually bring him into contact with the high reaches of British society, came from a working-class East London background. Educated in London, he left school at a young age, worked at a series of menial jobs, and served with the Royal Air Force in Malaysia in 1957–58. Having been interested from his youth in painting and photography, in 1959 he apprenticed at the John French Studio, where he became involved in fashion photography. In 1960 he began to photograph for British Vogue, where he worked for about 15 years, first on staff and later as a freelancer. He also freelanced for other magazines and newspapers.


Bailey's career and personal life seemed to thrive during the Heyday of the "Swinging Sixties," and while at times the public seemed more interested in his colorful exploits than in his photography, it is his work which really speaks for itself and withstands the test of time. In the past, he's cited Picasso as being his greatest inspiration. "The first half of the century belongs to Picasso and the second half belongs to photography. These days everyone is called an artist from Madonna to someone who can hold a paintbrush, but it is Picasso who really started the whole thing off and made me want to go and take pictures." And in the past 40 years Bailey has held steadfast to the way in which he take pictures: Black-and-white, minimalist, very graphic with high contrasts between lighter values and darker tones, and shot on a variety of formats. "I take the same approach today as I did when I started.I've always hated silly pictures and gimmicks, which is all I see these days, or, to put it another way, 'the Avant Garde has gone to Kmart."

All told, Bailey has written and produced countless books, directed films, arranged photographic shows and made commercials. His book Goodbye Baby and Amen is the complete record of his work and captures the decade he first flourished in, with portraits of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, as well as actresses, politicians, artists and writers of the day. His first book of portraits, David Bailey's Box of Pin-ups, was published in 1965. David Bailey's Rock and Roll Heroes, 1997, showcases more than 80 of his most vivid images of the pop scene from the 1960s on - images of Mick Jagger, John Lennon and Paul McCartney, and The Who - and also includes more recent photographs of recording artists like Seal, Liam and Noel Gallagher of Oasis, Sting, and Dave Stewart. Two noteworthy films are Beaton by Bailey, 1971, and Andy Warhol, 1973. In 1984 there was a major retrospective of his work at Manhattan's International Center of Photography, and in 1999 another major show, "The Birth of the Cool," at London's Barbican Centre.

David Bailey, Archive One 1957-1969, published in 1999, includes the bulk of his early fashion and portraiture work, but also unearths some photojournalistic gems taken in the early Sixties, mostly of London's East End. Today, Bailey's still going strong and shows no signs of slowing down. His most recent work includes portraits and celebrity shoots for Harper's Bazaar, Italian Vogue, The London Times and Talk magazine, among other publications.

Bailey’s fashion work and celebrity portraiture, characterized by stark backgrounds and dramatic lighting effects, transformed British fashion and celebrity photography from chic but reserved stylization to something more youthful and direct. His work reflects the 1960s British cultural trend of breaking down antiquated and rigid class barriers by injecting a working-class or “punk” look into both clothing and artistic products. Bailey himself became a celebrity who epitomized “swinging London”; he was known for his affairs with several celebrated women, among them the model Jean Shrimpton and the actress Catherine Deneuve, whom he married in 1965 (divorced 1972). He is thought to have inspired the role of the photographer, Thomas, in Michelangelo Antonioni’s film Blow-up (1966).

Bailey also directed television commercials and produced a number of books and documentary films. In 1972 he began publishing the fashion and photography magazine Ritz. Although he continued to photograph celebrities for publications such as Harper’s Bazaar and The London Times throughout the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s, he began to turn his attention to television commercials.

His documentary subjects include Cecil Beaton, Andy Warhol, and Luciano Visconti. Books of his photographs include Box of Pin-ups (1964), Goodbye Baby & Amen: A Sarabande for the Sixties (1969), Another Image: Papua New Guinea (1975), David Bailey’s Trouble and Strife (1980), David Bailey, London NWI: Urban Landscapes (1982), Imagine (1985), David Bailey’s Rock and Roll Heroes (1997), and David Bailey: Chasing Rainbows (2001). He was created a Commander of the British Empire in 2001.

David Bailey Fashion Photography

David Bailey Fashion Photography

David Bailey Fashion Photography

David Bailey Fashion Photography

David Bailey Fashion Photography

David Bailey Fashion Photography

David Bailey Fashion Photography

David Bailey Fashion Photography

David Bailey Fashion Photography

        David Bailey Fashion Photography        

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