David Bailey

After the impertinent dropping of bombs on his childhood home during WWII, English photographer David Bailey had to relocate to a new home. “In the winter”, he recalled, the family “would take bread-and-jam sandwiches and go to the cinema every night because in those days it was cheaper to go to the cinema than to put on the gas fire. I’ll bet I saw seven or eight movies a week.” He left school at 15 to become a copy boy. Bailey’s story gets even more intense with an expeditious rise at Vogue, a marriage to Catherine Deneuve, and an ongoing career. Bailey contracted psittacosis when he shared his house in Primrose Hill, north London, with girlfriend Penelope Tree, a UFO detecting machine left by Rolling Stone Brian Jones, and around 60 parrots. Strange may breed genius, with Bailey being no exception, but his photos speak for themselves.