Hazel Friedman
SO what’s a scumbag Eastender like yourself doing in a place like this? I don’t actually get around to asking this of world-famous photographer David Bailey. But on eyeing his jet-lagged lids I get the feeling that he’d much rather deal with inane queries than those of the gee, gosh, wow kind.
But he handles my inquiries about Marie, Jerry, Gianni, Mick, Naomi, Andy, art, beauty, London, life and love like a consummate pro. Even though he’d be much happier slouching with a beer in front of the telly than playing the fame game.
Bailey is in Johannesburg, courtsey of Sales House, to photograph super-ego supermodel Naomi Campbell. It’s his second trip to the deep South. The first was courtesy of Anglo American 20 years ago, when the name Bailey was synonomous with everything that was rich, famous and envied.
To the post-Studio 54 Generation, Bailey is the photographer who epitomised the glamorous, creative decadence of London in the 1960s and 1970s. He consorted with the most swinging, glamorous, decadent creative creatures in the world – from artist Andy Warhol to the Rolling Stones and Marie Helvin – the exotic model he married, immortalised and later divorced.
And he shot extraordinarily beautiful portraits of the glamorous, decadent and creative while making his mark as a commercial and documentary film-maker. He has also outlived some of the most glamorous, decadent, creative creatures of that era, like Warhol, Lennon and now, Gianni Versace.
But Bailey prefers not to dwell on death. He’d much rather talk about the History of Modelling — a three-part documentary he’s made for Britain’s Channel Four. And the book he’s published on portraits of the legends of rock’n’ roll. And his present wife, whom he captures beautiful, naked and pregnant in The Lady is a Tramp. And Mick’s wife, Jerry Hall.
Of his work he says: “I never try to complicate what I capture. I couldn’t imagine photographing a tree because the real thing is so much more beautiful. Yet with women, they continuously exude a mystery one never tires of.”
Bailey considers himself a man, not of good taste, but rather peculiar taste. “I remember when I was 19 and I encountered the work of Picasso. It changed the way I saw life,” he recalls.
And how does he compare living in London – the hippest city on the planet in the 1960s – to living in London – the hippest city on the planet in the 1990s. “The Sixties were narrower. Today everything is so much broader. I mean, today you have to queue to get into galleries.”
Although he insists that he hates nostalgia, he believes that over the years art has been cheapened . “Artists like Warhol showed how to manipulate the media. Celebrities like Madonna and Michael Jackson are his children. But today people no longer want to do something because of passion, but as a lifestyle choice. Art deserves more respect.”
Yet he hesitates to define his own work as art. “I’m just doing what I want to do,” he shrugs. “The secret is to just be oneself.”
At this point those jet-lagged lids seem about to collide with his cheeks. “John Lennon said it in one of his songs: `Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans.'”