David Bailey - Photographer HARDtalk


David Bailey - Photographer

Similar Content

Browse content similar to David Bailey - Photographer. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!

Transcript


LineFromTo

a picture has never been easier for UKIP. Now on BBC News it's time for

:00:00.:00:10.

Hardtalk. Welcome to HARDtalk. I'm Steven Sackur. We all take

:00:11.:00:13.

photographs but very few of us capture images which come to define

:00:14.:00:17.

a generation. One of those legendary photographers joins me today, David

:00:18.:00:30.

Bowie. `` Bailey. In the 60s, he captured the vitality, the sexiness

:00:31.:00:33.

and the rebel spirit of the age in black and white. Over five

:00:34.:00:36.

successive decades, he has conjured up iconic images of models, rock

:00:37.:00:39.

stars and even gangsters. But what do his pictures say about him?

:00:40.:01:04.

David, welcome to HARDtalk. Stephen. It seems like you have been

:01:05.:01:17.

getting a buzz out of taking pictures from when you were a

:01:18.:01:21.

teenager to this very day. How do you describe the buzz you get? It is

:01:22.:01:24.

something I do, I can't help it. I do what I do and I don't know why. I

:01:25.:01:33.

mean, I don't know why do it, I just do it. I like doing it. I do other

:01:34.:01:39.

things too. But you are known for your camera work. What intrigues me

:01:40.:01:42.

is that you came from a background, a working`class family, your dad was

:01:43.:01:44.

a tailor, where photography, presumably, was not discussed at

:01:45.:01:48.

home much. And yet, for some reason you were attracted to it. I want to

:01:49.:01:53.

know why. I guess because I am dyslexic. It was the best thing that

:01:54.:02:01.

ever happened to me. , second or third, if we want to be precise. I

:02:02.:02:05.

couldn't do anything else because I am completely uneducated. I left

:02:06.:02:11.

school at 15. The parting words from the headmaster were not positive. I

:02:12.:02:16.

could not spell. I was always taking the Mickey out of everything. I

:02:17.:02:27.

thought of was a bit. `` I thought of was at bit. When you got a camera

:02:28.:02:34.

in your hands, I know that you spent some time in the army. The Air

:02:35.:02:40.

Force. Doing some camerawork. Did you ever think, I could make the job

:02:41.:02:44.

out of this? No I never thought like that. I hate the idea of doing a job

:02:45.:02:49.

or career. You just do what you do. I have always painted as well. I

:02:50.:02:52.

still paint. I have got enough enemies in photography though. I

:02:53.:03:02.

guess it was Hollywood movies. We used to go to the movies maybe... At

:03:03.:03:06.

least five times a week because it was cheaper to go to the movies. It

:03:07.:03:14.

was cheaper to go to the movies than to put a shilling in the gas meter

:03:15.:03:20.

and keep warm. My mum and my sister and I used to go to the movies with

:03:21.:03:23.

bread and jam sandwiches and orange juice and watch movies. Sometimes,

:03:24.:03:26.

they always had two movies and they used to loop them. So I became an

:03:27.:03:30.

expert on movies. And glamorous moving images? Not particularly

:03:31.:03:34.

glamorous. I liked the film noir ones best. I like the lighting. I

:03:35.:03:45.

thought they were terrific. You are talking about post`war Britain when

:03:46.:03:48.

the country was going through austerity. It was fairly dull and

:03:49.:03:50.

grey. But then, something happened as you became a young man and moved

:03:51.:03:54.

into your working life, you are at the cusp and maybe a pioneer in

:03:55.:04:00.

changing photography. You got involved in fashion photography,

:04:01.:04:03.

magazines and you did it in a way that really had not been done

:04:04.:04:11.

before. A few other people went in that direction. There is always a

:04:12.:04:19.

feeling somewhere. You know, there is a feeling for things. You do

:04:20.:04:23.

something and you think it is original and then you see someone

:04:24.:04:26.

else has done it. There is this kind of collective unconsciousness or

:04:27.:04:29.

whatever it is that people seem to move in that direction. Let's look

:04:30.:04:32.

at an image. One of the famous, fairly early pictures you took. A

:04:33.:04:37.

picture of a model, it is all about selling the clothes she is wearing

:04:38.:04:40.

but actually, the image itself and the way you portrayed her cause a

:04:41.:04:46.

massive stir. What were you thinking? It is bit of a silly

:04:47.:04:53.

picture. It is almost surreal because the girl is kneeling on the

:04:54.:05:01.

floor talking to a stuffed squirrel. Which is quite bizarre. LAUGHTER One

:05:02.:05:09.

of my friends said, did you do that on purpose or was it an accident? I

:05:10.:05:17.

actually did do it on purpose. But wasn't it Terence Donovan who said

:05:18.:05:24.

you know what, you have taken a picture there that will change

:05:25.:05:31.

everything. That is what he said. You've just spoilt my answer. Why do

:05:32.:05:36.

you think that that was changing the way that fashion photography works?

:05:37.:05:39.

The whole world thought it. Terry did not, he was pretty smart. That's

:05:40.:05:42.

all I can say, really. It was actually before the New York being

:05:43.:05:50.

with Jean. Jean Shrimpton. This model was great, she was from

:05:51.:05:54.

London. She had a working`class accent, that never went down well

:05:55.:06:03.

with the magazine. Isn't that the very point? That you shook this

:06:04.:06:08.

world up. The fashion world, it used to be very formal and demure. The

:06:09.:06:20.

photographers, and indeed the models, were often quite high`class,

:06:21.:06:23.

doing it as a useful hobby. You shook this world. The fashion world

:06:24.:06:27.

was... I don't know how I got into it. Like a pea getting into a pea

:06:28.:06:31.

can. I had been used to being treated as an idiot at school. You

:06:32.:06:41.

had a London accent when most people around you were posh. OK, the two

:06:42.:06:51.

guys that help me most was John French, a photographer. I worked

:06:52.:06:54.

with him as an assistant. Then I mucked around for a few months, and

:06:55.:07:02.

he was gay. And they were outsiders, so I was an outsider as well. And

:07:03.:07:06.

then John Parsons who was the art director of British Vogue at the

:07:07.:07:09.

time and had drug problems, he was gay too. So I think it was like

:07:10.:07:15.

those two guys helped me enormously because we were all outsiders in a

:07:16.:07:21.

strange way. And I thought it was their way of poking back. I don't

:07:22.:07:24.

know. They are both dead, unfortunately. But those two guys, I

:07:25.:07:30.

mean I have never been gay. I was a kid at school and there was a

:07:31.:07:33.

teacher who was always trying to kiss me but you couldn't tell anyone

:07:34.:07:36.

in those days. The headmaster would not believe you. You told your

:07:37.:07:44.

mother, she would kill him. Far from being gay, it does strike me that

:07:45.:07:48.

you said once I think, I never cared much for fashion it, was the girls I

:07:49.:07:52.

liked. You do seem to have found a way of using your charisma to get

:07:53.:07:56.

women, both to model for you in a new way but also a lot of the women

:07:57.:08:00.

were seduced by you in a literal sense. They seduced me too. I don't

:08:01.:08:23.

know. I want to get to the nature of the relationship. With these women,

:08:24.:08:30.

who you were photographing, and sometimes turning into stars? Do you

:08:31.:08:35.

want the truth? OK. The only way you can be vaguely creative and get paid

:08:36.:08:39.

for it, vaguely get paid, was to do fashion pictures because it was

:08:40.:08:41.

quite creative. No other type of photography was created under you

:08:42.:08:44.

wanted to go somewhere and get shot at which I did not fancy. And so, it

:08:45.:08:55.

was the only way... It was nothing to do with the women. It was that

:08:56.:09:01.

you could make creative images and get paid for it. Otherwise, you

:09:02.:09:05.

ended up doing pictures of cars or still lifes of food which did not

:09:06.:09:10.

interest me. But I think you once said, and this is something that

:09:11.:09:13.

strikes me as very interesting, you said, "I sometimes hate what I am

:09:14.:09:17.

doing to the girls because it turned them from human beings into objects

:09:18.:09:20.

and they come to believe that how I photograph them is the way they

:09:21.:09:31.

are". It gives me a terrific feeling of power. I said that years ago when

:09:32.:09:42.

I was 25. That was in the early 60s. I have said lots of stupid things!

:09:43.:09:46.

Maybe that is not stupid, maybe that is true. That you were turning girls

:09:47.:09:51.

into objects. But only the stupid ones believed it. The girls I worked

:09:52.:09:55.

with a lot like Jean Shrimpton, Anjelica Huston. They were all... We

:09:56.:10:08.

have a picture here of Marie Helvin. She was a beautiful young American

:10:09.:10:16.

model. You worked with her very early in her career, when I think

:10:17.:10:20.

she was barely 20 and you ended up marrying her. And then she wrote a

:10:21.:10:23.

memoir much later which she described her life with you. People

:10:24.:10:27.

do look back on the way that men behaved. Powerful men in the 60s and

:10:28.:10:31.

70s. And say I do not know how I did it or how I got away with it. It's

:10:32.:10:39.

WH Auden. It is a time and place. You can't be judged by today's

:10:40.:10:42.

standards on those standards. It was a completely different world. It was

:10:43.:10:45.

a different attitude. Women would be getting undressed while they were

:10:46.:10:48.

saying "no, I don't want to do this". So you work it out. Don't

:10:49.:10:57.

tell me that men still don't do it or women still don't do it. Women

:10:58.:11:10.

still don't do it. But the attitude in society particularly amongst

:11:11.:11:13.

women has made it much less acceptable for them to behave in

:11:14.:11:20.

that way. To behave in what way? Well, to use power... I didn't use

:11:21.:11:28.

power. You think I was like a Hollywood mogul? You really think I

:11:29.:11:35.

used my power that way? You're mad. You can't promise something like

:11:36.:11:40.

that. It wouldn't even enter my mind. It was just a normal

:11:41.:11:43.

relationship. I was just fortunate to be able to be surrounded by

:11:44.:11:46.

beautiful women. You have been attacked over the years by

:11:47.:11:49.

feminists. Well, especially the 70s feminists. They're still around,

:11:50.:11:56.

some of them. They weren't about feminism. They were about hatred. Of

:11:57.:12:02.

you? Of men. Let me get away from the dynamic of you and the women you

:12:03.:12:05.

are photographing, and think about the imagery of women.

:12:06.:12:34.

wonder whether you look back on what happens, in the period after the

:12:35.:12:37.

early 60s, and worry about the way women have been portrayed? No. I

:12:38.:12:43.

can't see much difference between what I did and what they did in the

:12:44.:12:49.

renaissance. What is the difference? The editor of Vogue is leading a

:12:50.:12:52.

campaign to get glossy magazines, and our general culture, away from

:12:53.:12:55.

the idea that attractive women have to be stick thin. Opening to a wider

:12:56.:13:08.

range of female looks. It is about selling frocks. The

:13:09.:13:14.

camera puts ten or 15lbs on anybody. It is the way that the animal is. It

:13:15.:13:22.

has nothing to do with saying all skinny women are beautiful. You

:13:23.:13:25.

could say Botticelli started it with Venus coming out of the sea. She was

:13:26.:13:33.

a skinny as anything around now. And there was nothing wrong with her.

:13:34.:13:37.

Let me talk to you about how you get to the real essence or spirit of the

:13:38.:13:43.

subjects that you have photographed. You are famous for iconic pictures

:13:44.:13:46.

not just of beautiful women, but a range of rock stars, movie stars,

:13:47.:13:52.

Jagger, Nicholson. You are so typical about what I do. You dismiss

:13:53.:13:58.

everything. You have tunnel vision. Fashion is the least interesting

:13:59.:14:02.

thing I've ever done in my life. Well let's look at this one then.

:14:03.:14:09.

This isn't fashion. This is an image of the Kray twins. You spent quite a

:14:10.:14:14.

lot of time with them. More with Reg than Ronnie. These

:14:15.:14:26.

were two of London's most violent criminals. What was it like spending

:14:27.:14:36.

time with them? It is difficult. Time and place. You didn't come from

:14:37.:14:49.

the East End, obviously. But you didn't have too many choices in

:14:50.:14:53.

life. People don't have too many choices. Like the Indian police for

:14:54.:14:59.

example. They are earning ?10 a week. So if they earn ?500 to look

:15:00.:15:08.

the other way, that is just the human condition. It is where you are

:15:09.:15:12.

from. It is the time and place you exist.

:15:13.:15:17.

What I am interested in is how you got these brothers, who were

:15:18.:15:19.

infamous for their violence. They posed for you. That is the way you

:15:20.:15:24.

took photographs. You got to know them first. How did that process

:15:25.:15:30.

work for you? Given who they were, and what you knew about them?

:15:31.:15:35.

I come from quite a tough background anyway. I wasn't unaware of gangs

:15:36.:15:38.

and things. I was beat up myself quite a few times. Didn't you

:15:39.:15:42.

discover that Ron had actually attacked your own father?

:15:43.:15:49.

I only discovered that recently. My aunt who was 87 knew about it. I did

:15:50.:15:59.

not know about it. I don't know. Another interesting thing you said

:16:00.:16:02.

is that you actually fall in love with your subject. For the time you

:16:03.:16:10.

are with them, and photographing them, it is a sort of intense

:16:11.:16:15.

relationship. They are the sun in your world. For as long as you have

:16:16.:16:22.

them where you are photographing them, I am wondering whether you can

:16:23.:16:26.

do your job and come away with a photograph you are happy with with

:16:27.:16:29.

somebody that you dislike, or don't connect with?

:16:30.:16:35.

Yes, of course. It is to do with humanity and who we are. You can't

:16:36.:16:46.

ignore one thing and be blind to it. It won't go away. If anything, I did

:16:47.:16:50.

everyone a favour by making them famous. If you are a real gangster,

:16:51.:16:57.

no`one knows who you are. Their big mistake was probably posing for me.

:16:58.:17:04.

The ultimate celebrities, or the most famous people you could

:17:05.:17:07.

imagine, are the royals. You worked with Diana.

:17:08.:17:18.

She was a very nice woman. But let's be honest with ourselves. Putting

:17:19.:17:22.

things in perspective, she and Charles weren't a fairytale prince

:17:23.:17:30.

and princess. I don't put royalty in books. It is most people put

:17:31.:17:38.

royalties in books are trying to sell the book.

:17:39.:17:42.

I wonder whether, we talked earlier about your roots, has that come into

:17:43.:17:51.

play in who you like to photograph? And who doesn't really turn you on

:17:52.:17:56.

in terms of the subjects? I have photographed every politician

:17:57.:18:00.

there is at the moment. It is that interesting? How are our

:18:01.:18:05.

politicians? The most interesting to work with

:18:06.:18:11.

was Margaret Thatcher. If I was going to photograph her I was happy.

:18:12.:18:16.

She was charming, professional, and helpful.

:18:17.:18:22.

Not long ago I interviewed a photographer called Giles Duley. He

:18:23.:18:29.

used to work in the world of drama, fashion, and celebrity. He then got

:18:30.:18:36.

fed up with it and couldn't do it any more. It did not mean enough to

:18:37.:18:43.

him. He ended up working with NGOs and working in Afghanistan, in very

:18:44.:18:46.

tough conditions. You have done some of that work too. If we look at this

:18:47.:18:59.

picture here. I believe it was connected with Band`Aid. You went

:19:00.:19:12.

out to Sudan. When you go there and do that kind of work does it fit?

:19:13.:19:26.

You feel people do it with you? You are so associated with the 60s, that

:19:27.:19:29.

in a sense people still link you with that time in that place. You

:19:30.:19:35.

have done 40 years more work. Michelangelo, most people think of

:19:36.:19:38.

the Sistine Chapel. He's a ceiling painter. But that was the thing he

:19:39.:19:51.

did least. Everyone remembers him for the wrong reasons. You don't

:19:52.:19:56.

expect people to remember you. There was a surrealist who on his deathbed

:19:57.:19:59.

said nobody understood me. Except one man. And he didn't really

:20:00.:20:14.

understand. So that is your life. Do you think that you haven't been

:20:15.:20:18.

understood? I suspect that you think I haven't understood your work. I

:20:19.:20:22.

think you went down a funny avenue sticking up for those silly

:20:23.:20:25.

feminists in the 70s. But what you are saying is did I glamorise Sudan.

:20:26.:20:31.

You have done so much. What is that you are proudest of? I don't do

:20:32.:20:39.

proud. I think proud is silly. Why would I be proud? It is what I do. I

:20:40.:20:46.

can paint pictures, make movies and make sculptures. I can't change

:20:47.:20:55.

that. I do it because I do it. Your friend, another famous photographer,

:20:56.:21:05.

here is a bit of his poetry. He said one thing that unites the great

:21:06.:21:07.

photographers is that their pictures, no matter what they are

:21:08.:21:09.

photographing, are really portraits of themselves. Do you think that is

:21:10.:21:18.

true? You could say that about painters

:21:19.:21:20.

too. But in the context of you? I am not

:21:21.:21:26.

talking about literally the people you are photographing. But the

:21:27.:21:35.

spirit behind the photograph. I like spirits. They laugh and don't take

:21:36.:21:43.

life that seriously. But if we look at all of your work,

:21:44.:21:47.

how would you say it captures your character?

:21:48.:21:53.

Nobody has ever seen all of my lifetime. This is not a

:21:54.:21:59.

retrospective. This thing at the National Portrait Gallery is

:22:00.:22:05.

portraits I have taken. But journalists, in their great

:22:06.:22:08.

intelligence, always say that it is a retrospective. They had to have

:22:09.:22:16.

labels to put on it. I would be interested to know whether there is

:22:17.:22:19.

something that this show captures about you that you can put into

:22:20.:22:26.

words? If I had to think about that, I don't think I would do it. I would

:22:27.:22:30.

leave it to other people. Critics in the Financial Times or something

:22:31.:22:37.

like that. I just do what I do. If people like it...and if they dislike

:22:38.:22:41.

it, tough on me and tough on them. Because maybe were both missing

:22:42.:22:47.

something. There is a yin and yang in life. It's been a pleasure having

:22:48.:22:56.

you on the programme. Don't tell porkies.

:22:57.:23:23.

Bank holiday Monday is upon us and it's looking unsettled. There will

:23:24.:23:31.

be sunshine and showers around and for much of the week, there

:23:32.:23:32.

Download Subtitles

SRT

ASS