David Bailey Quotes & Sayings

I don't think it matters where I came from any more. — David Bailey

You have to kind of be invisible when you photograph children, so you use a longer lens. — David Bailey

My friends are all megalomaniacs - from Damien Hirst to Jack Nicholson - all of them. — David Bailey

I don't like any sport except boxing and bull fighting. — David Bailey

It's not about composition. It's the way you feel about how your objects should relate to each other. I've got lots of African statues and things, and the cleaner arranges them like soldiers, which drives me mad. So I have to rearrange them, and I must drive her mad, because I'm doing anarchy and she's doing military manoeuvres. — David Bailey

Good shoes are important. I wear English brogues in a wide fitting. They last me years. — David Bailey

I am mad about my wife. — David Bailey

If you're curious, London's an amazing place. — David Bailey

I hate men who are in touch with their feminine side. — David Bailey

It takes a lot of imagination to be a good photographer. You need less imagination to be a painter because you can invent things. But in photography everything is so ordinary; it takes a lot of looking before you learn to see the extraordinary. — David Bailey

Being dyslexic, I was told that I was an idiot all the time. — David Bailey

I never set out to be a photographer. — David Bailey

My father was a tailor, my mother a machinist. — David Bailey

I'm not political and I don't judge. — David Bailey

I used to love the '20s. — David Bailey

Rather than knowing more, I think I've got more open-minded. — David Bailey

If I have any sexist feelings they are aimed at men: I hate manly men. — David Bailey

I never tried to revolutionise photography; I just do what I do and keep my fingers crossed that people will like it. — David Bailey

London changes because of money. It's real estate. If they can build some offices or expensive apartments they will, it's money that changes everything in a city. — David Bailey

I love learning new techniques. — David Bailey

I was dyslexic, so I was put in the silly class at school. — David Bailey

In New York, everyone's desperate for success, desperate for money and desperate to be accepted, but in London they're more laid back about things like that. — David Bailey

I was surrounded by strong women so it had never even occurred to me that women were anything other than equal to men. — David Bailey

I always go for simplicity. — David Bailey

Girls are more attractive to me than dresses. — David Bailey

All I could do at school was paint and draw and that was the only time I ever passed any exam. It was the only thing I ever got right at school. — David Bailey

It's only a few nutcases who do art for themselves, like Van Gogh. — David Bailey

The trouble with people like Tony Blair is they get confused, they think intelligence is education when they're two different things. — David Bailey

I didn't try and do fashion pictures. I tried to do portraits of girls wearing dresses. — David Bailey

Being trendy is dangerous. I've never been trendy, which is why I've never really fallen out of favour. — David Bailey

I sort of fall in love with them when I'm photographing them - men and women. — David Bailey

Everyone gets old - there's nothing you can do about it. — David Bailey

I don't see the point of photographing trees or rocks because they're there and anyone can photograph them if they're prepared to hang around and wait for the light. — David Bailey

A positive attitude can really make dreams come true - it did for me. — David Bailey

Actors are hard to photograph because they never want to reveal who they are. You don't know if you're getting a character from a Chekhov play or a Polanski film. It depends what mood they're in. — David Bailey

I never cared for fashion much, amusing little seams and witty little pleats: it was the girls I liked. — David Bailey

I won't do advertising if they bring a layout and say, 'This is what we want to do,' because anybody can do that; it's not interesting. They've got digital and the computer; it's not taking pictures, it's not magic - it's a picture done by committee. — David Bailey

I didn't know a time when there wasn't a war because I spent all my time from the age of two or three to eight in a coal cellar really. — David Bailey

I don't think my work does reflect my nationality - I don't like the idea of nationalism. — David Bailey

The first half of the 20th century belongs to Picasso, and the second half is about photography. They said digital would kill photography because everyone can do it, but they said that about the box brownie in 1885 when it came out. It makes photography interesting because everyone thinks they can take a picture. — David Bailey

All pictures are unnatural. All pictures are sad because they're about dead people. Paintings you don't think of in a special time or with a specific event. With photos I always think I'm looking at something dead. — David Bailey

The Sixties was a time of breaking down class barriers, although I think class still exists today in some areas. — David Bailey

I'm never shocked, I'm not the shockable type! — David Bailey

The only thing they can't teach you at art school is art. — David Bailey

I didn't know I was going to live for 50 years. It has come as a shock. — David Bailey

Sometimes I still can't believe my luck. — David Bailey

I suppose because my work was so popular people didn't really look at it. — David Bailey

Nothing wrong with retouching - nothing new about retouching. — David Bailey

I'm an image-maker. — David Bailey

I've always been a bit flip. — David Bailey

There's nothing wrong with being a fashion photographer, but it's a bit limited. — David Bailey

I had a terrible time with feminists in the Seventies. They hated me, those women. I think they hated everything. — David Bailey

The only thing approaching art in a movie is the script. — David Bailey

Kate Moss is the best thing since Jean Shrimpton, really. — David Bailey

You adapt to who you're photographing. — David Bailey

I hate being so nostalgic about the Sixties. — David Bailey

People want security in this insecure world. — David Bailey

I've had some weird experiences. — David Bailey

If something becomes old-fashioned, it was no good to start with. Think about it. Michelangelo is not old-fashioned. — David Bailey

I think about death all the time. I know there's nothing out there, but I'm curious. There's a 300 billion-to-one chance that there might be an energy that goes somewhere else, but I doubt it. — David Bailey

Journalists never make it clear when you are joking. — David Bailey

In France they don't think I'm difficult. — David Bailey

I love people for giving me their time. It's a privilege - I make the most of it. — David Bailey

I was a terrible father. The most I ever did for my children was to teach them chess. At least they got that. — David Bailey

I did painting before I did photography. — David Bailey

I was ten when I got my first serious beating. It was rough. — David Bailey

The best advice I ever got was that knowledge is power and to keep reading. — David Bailey

I don't think global warming is to do with us, I think it's a natural circle. I don't think a few Ferraris make that much difference. — David Bailey

The skull is nature's sculpture. — David Bailey

The earth has a life of its own. — David Bailey

In a way, a man's body is more beautiful than a woman's. — David Bailey

I'm not a philosopher, I'm just a simple boy from East Ham. — David Bailey

You can't really copy what I do because I don't do anything. — David Bailey

I could develop a picture by the time I was 12. — David Bailey

Fashion often starts off beautiful and becomes ugly, whereas art starts off ugly sometimes and becomes beautiful. — David Bailey

I've always tried to do pictures that don't date. — David Bailey

It is a sign of a dull nature to occupy oneself deeply in matters that concern the body; for instance, to be over much occupied about exercise, about eating and drinking, about easing oneself, about sexual intercourse. — David Bailey

I am not responsible for all the journalists in the past that have told lies. — David Bailey

Instead of putting someone in prison for being a hooligan, give him a choice. He may have beaten someone up and he's got eight years, but tell him you can do eight years inside or spend five years in the Army. Put him in the Parachute Regiment, they'd soon sort him out. — David Bailey

Photography is more about money now but then so are most things. — David Bailey

Being handsome wasn't much of a burden. It worked for me. — David Bailey

Fortunately I didn't get educated because if I'd got educated I'd be an educated fool now. — David Bailey

John Parsons, the gay art director at 'Vogue,' really started my career. — David Bailey

When I stop working, I go out and start working again. Most people paint a picture, or whatever they do, and go home. For me, it has to be continuous. — David Bailey

To get rich, you have to be making money while you're asleep. — David Bailey

I guess I'm the last of the Cockneys. — David Bailey

In '73 I photographed the cannibals in New Guinea. They treated me OK but they didn't make you feel relaxed ... I managed to escape unscathed though, I'm pretty good at that. — David Bailey

I have never met an ugly woman. — David Bailey

I have always wanted to live in the present and never the past. — David Bailey

I just thought it was magic that you could stick a bit of paper in some coffee-type liquid and a picture comes out. — David Bailey

I know everything should be photographed. It helps me make sense of my existence. — David Bailey

I don't feel very optimistic in London. — David Bailey

When I die I want to go to Vogue. — David Bailey

My first influence obviously was Picasso. — David Bailey

Rockers are the nicest people to photograph. They have no inhibitions. — David Bailey

All my ex-girlfriends or wives are all kind of great friends and I've never understood somebody who can live with somebody for five or six years and then not like them. — David Bailey

I like change. There's something Buddhist about it - continuous change is wonderful. — David Bailey

My paintings are rubbish. — David Bailey

I don't do proud. — David Bailey

I'm not mad about movies, there are too many people involved in the making of them, and they lack a definitive creative focus. — David Bailey