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
Fashion often starts off beautiful and becomes ugly, whereas art starts off ugly sometimes and becomes beautiful. – David Bailey
Botticelli would have made a very good fashion photographer. He did eight heads instead of seven heads in a body, which is fashion illustration. – David Bailey
I didn’t try and do fashion pictures. I tried to do portraits of girls wearing dresses. – 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
Being trendy is dangerous. I’ve never been trendy, which is why I’ve never really fallen out of favour. – David Bailey
I never cared for fashion much, amusing little seams and witty little pleats: it was the girls I liked. – 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
You have to kind of be invisible when you photograph children, so you use a longer lens. – 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 don’t think my work does reflect my nationality – I don’t like the idea of nationalism. – 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
