David Bailey | |
---|---|
Bailey in 2012
|
|
Born |
David Royston Bailey 2 January 1938 Leytonstone, London, England |
Nationality | British |
Occupation | Photographer |
Years active | 1959–present |
Spouse(s) | Rosemary Bramble (1960–64; divorced) Catherine Deneuve (1965–72; divorced) Marie Helvin (1975–82; divorced) Catherine Dyer (1986–present) |
Children | Sascha Bailey, Fenton Bailey and Paloma Bailey |
Website | http://www.visualartists.co/artist/davidbailey |
Susie Bubble visits Bailey's Stardust on YouTube, TheArtFundUK |
David Royston Bailey, CBE (born 2 January 1937) is an English fashion and portrait photographer.
David Bailey was born in Leytonstone East London, to Herbert Bailey, a tailor's cutter, and his wife, Sharon, a machinist. From the age of three he lived in East Ham.
Bailey developed a love of natural history, and this led him into photography. Suffering from undiagnosed dyslexia, he experienced problems at school. He attended a private school, Clark's College in Ilford, where he says they taught him less than the more basic council school. As well as dyslexia he also has the motor skill disorder dyspraxia (developmental coordination disorder).
In one school year, he claims he only attended 33 times. He left school on his fifteenth birthday, to become a copy boy at the Fleet Street offices of the Yorkshire Post. He raced through a series of dead end jobs, before his call up for National Service in 1956, serving with the Royal Air Force in Singapore in 1957. The appropriation of his trumpet forced him to consider other creative outlets, and he bought a Rolleiflex camera.
He was demobbed in August 1958, and determined to pursue a career in photography, he bought a Canon rangefinder camera. Unable to obtain a place at the London College of Printing because of his school record, he became a second assistant to David Ollins, in Charlotte Mews. He earned £3 10s (£3.50) a week, and acted as studio dogsbody. He was delighted to be called to an interview with photographer John French.