David Roystone Bailey was born in Leyonstone East London till the age of three then he left East Ham. Known for being one of the most remarkable fashion and portrait photographers in the world, best in England depending on your personal preference (sort of style). Bailey worked at British vogue magazine after signing a contract to be a fashion photographer in 1960, before that 1959 he was a photographic assistant at the john french studio. David’s love for photography descend from a early fascination of natural history, he attended a private school Clark’s college in llford where he experienced problems due to suffering from undiagnosed dyslexia, as well as dyspraxia, which all about lost control of balance i know this because I also have both learning disability’s. This extraordinary photographer is considered a huge pioneer of contemporary photography also is credited with taking some of the most compelling images of the last five decades, many have said David was know for capturing the essence’s of the sixty’s. Critics and admirers describe his method of shooting or creating pictures in a simple yet powerful black and white tone as a genre of its own right. David quickly rose to fame making stars out of a new generation of models including Penelope Tree ,Jean Shrimpton, who later became baileys girlfriend. Since then he’s continued never failing to impress and inspire others. All sort of iconic legends and famous people like actors, musicians, big time models and even political figure heads like the queen, the Kray twins, Gary Oldman, Kate moss, the Beatles and many more, either have been asked by Bailey himself or ask to get their picture taking by him due to them being fans.
David has done two album covers for the band the rolling stones called out of our heads and goats head soup.
Goats head soup. Out of our heads.
I have become more interested with this photographers style that he puts into each of his pieces as time and research continued and feel that he is now my favourite photographer along side with my great grandads (Charles Reynell Mohun) workings. I’m definitely going to look in too this artist as much as I can outside and inside of college.
The use of arms is what first draws my eye to this image of Micheal Caine, how the elbows aren’t visible and the positioning of his hands that are lifting the glasses to his forehead makes you notice his eyes, which is hard to realise are looking right into the camera lens. The shape of blackness from the suit interests me because it makes a the shape of the letter ‘T’ and due to the contrast of spaces that are white. I find certain aspects of Micheal’s face is really intriguing the more I look at it for example the use of shadowing going down the right and left side of his face presumably from his hands almost makes a circle around his face. Feel the face is the most cleanest part of the portrait, has a lot of detail yet being very grey also looks like he hadn’t shaved in a day or two. His smile seems to tell a confusing story of what emotion he’s expressing, kind of a curiosity cheeky grin.
This portrait of Jude law resembles another older photograph bailey took of Micheal Caine in many ways for lots of reasons, mainly its a very close recreation of Micheal’s portrait. I reckon bailey did this remake because back when Micheal had his picture taken in may 1965, he was acting in film called Alfie released the next year 1966. Caine played the main role named after the title of the movie then Jude stared in a remake of the same movie playing the same character as Micheal “Alfie” release was the 22nd October 2004.
I personally prefer Jude’s picture due to there being more light white areas on his shirt and left side of face. There’s a lot of detail in Jude’s compared to Micheal’s because of the forty year gap between the two images, technology and the way we photograph has changed massively. The shadowing of Micheal’s portrait brings a lot of edge to what emotion he’s showing also seems he isn’t very bothered about it either, its almost like here is a metaphor to the cigarette hang from his mouth to his expression.
Doyles blog 