Bailey, Donovan, Duffy

Today we saw a documentary on Brian Duffy, which also featured David Bailey and briefly spoke about Terence Donovan. The three were all British and from London, the three were most prominent during the 1960s and worked together during this time.

David Bailey is arguably the most well known of the trio, he is also the only who is still alive. Before becoming a prominent photographer he worked with as John French's assistant beginning in 1959 though was only there for 11 months. After this Bailey went on to work at John Cole's Studio Five, before joining Vogue Magazine later on in 1960. Along with Donovan and Duffy he photographed Swinging London of the '60s, this was a culture of fashion and celebrity chic. This allowed them to be elevated to celebrity status and the trio were nicknamed "the Black Trinity". Throughout the 60s Bailey photographed some of the most well known people around including Terence Stamp, The Beatles, Mick Jagger and notorious gangsters the Kray Twins. During his less prominent years in the 70s and 80s he continued to photograph some of the biggest names in music including the likes of Alice Cooper and Freddie Mercury. David Bailey's images all have a similar style in the studio they are all quite similar to this one by this I mean the background always seems to be white and he rarely uses the lighting to darken down the background like Duffy and Donovan have done. His images all look quite interesting as he doesn't get the model to just do one simple pose he mixes it around a bit a gets his subjects to do multiple poses. This photo is quite interesting as the model isn't looking at the camera, quite a few photographers do this but they don't get the model so completely ignore the camera like this and have their model side on like this, some do but it isn't common to see. That is the main reason I like this photo Bailey is attempting something not many people would have done.

Brian Duffy was a photographer who was best known for his fashion photography during the 1960s and 70s. He began his freelance work in 1955 as a fashion artist for Harper's Bazaar. He became impressed by the photographers work at the company that he knew it was the thing for him and after beginning, he joined Vogue in 1957. After leaving Vogue in 1963 he went on to work for several other major publications including Glamour Magazine and Esquire. He was also hired to shoot the second ever Pirelli calendar in 1965, which he shot in the South of France and in 1973 he was commissioned to shoot a second Pirelli calendar, becoming one of very few photographers to ever shoot multiple Pirelli calendars. He created this calendar in collaboration with Allen Jones, a sculptor and Phillip Castle, an air brush specialist. Duffy also had a ten year working relationship with musician David Bowie, where he shot three album covers for the singer. In 1979 he promptly ended his career and began to burn his negatives, but neighbours and the council prevented this and most of his work was saved. Brian Duffy's images are quite different to David Bailey's as Duffy does use the lighting to create a darker background whereas Duffy doesn't. This image is quite interesting as it shows John Lennon posing with something but I wouldn't know what it is, the way he has used the lighting to create the dark background is really brilliant and compliments the image brilliant and is similar to the image below.

Terence Donovan was a photographer who was best known for his fashion photography during the 1960s. He began photographing the aftermath of World War II in the late 1940s and early 1950s. He was considered along with Bailey and Duffy the first true celebrity photographers due to their intense recognition worldwide and his notable work as well. He also worked for Harper's Bazaar and Vogue and away from photography he was also a film maker and made some 3000 TV commercials. His filming began in the 1970s following a decade of successful photography where he became one of the biggest names in photography during the 1960s. He also directed several music videos for Robert Palmer. Terence Donovan's images seem to be the most experimental of the three as he uses many different lighting techniques in the studio as he clearly has done in this image of Lady Diana. He also uses many props in his images as well, the models also seem to be given plenty of freedom to do what they want in the images. It also looks like he goes out on location to take his portrait images a lot more than Bailey or Duffy. His images are in my opinion the best of the three as not only does he show loads of experimentation in the studio but also out on location with several images showing his incredible range in photography.