In the world of photography, and especially in the confines of British photography there
David Bailey
can surely be no more famous name than that of David Bailey. Best known now for his participation in, and capturing on film of, London’s ‘swinging sixties’, Bailey could be described as the archetypal East End boy made good.
Bailey was born in Leytonstone, in the East End, in 1938 but when a German bomb destroyed the family house during the Blitz in 1941, the Baileys relocated to East Ham where they remained throughout David’s childhood. Bailey did not attend school regularly, even when he was sent to a private shcool – he suffered from dyslexia and during the war lessons were occasionally interrupted by German air raids. He did develop a passion for natural history though and this seems to have been what kick-started an interest in photography.
Leaving school at fifteen, he became a copy boy at the Yorkshire Post’s offices on Fleet Street before heading into National Service in 1956 and a stint in Singapore. In what may be an apocryphal tale, perhaps a piece of embellishment or maybe even true, Bailey says that the theft of his trumpet prompted the purchase of a Rolleiflex camera as a means to find an outlet for his creativity.
John French photography
When his stint in National Service had finished, his enthusiasm for photography continued and he purchased his second camera, a Canon Rangefinder. Finding himself unqualified to study photography at college because of his poor educational record, Bailey obtained a post as second assistant to David Ollins, an advertising photographer. Second assistant was something akin to a dogsbody and Bailey continued to search for alternative work.
Eventually, in 1959, he became a photographer’s assistant at the John French Studio, a business which concentrated on fashion and portrait photography and strived to introduce some clever innovation into the business of advertising in print media.
Part Two follows…..