‘David Bailey’ 2001 – David Bailey
Bailey has turned his camera on himself; he is both the artist and the subject. For once he is not evaluating the character of another, but him-self. The viewer tends to analyse, interpret and look to all self-portraits to deliver revelations about the artist’s psyche. In fact by engineering all aspects of the image – from pose to lighting, framing to clothes – the artist is able to portray him (or her) self, not necessarily truthfully, but as they would wish to be seen. Here Bailey shadows half his face, tilts his head downwards and looks up at the lens. He knows that the subject’s power to arrest and engage the viewer depends on eye contact. He emerges from this portrait as somewhat self-consciously intense.
This idea of turning from the photographer to the subject is a very intriguing one. I have found many of the fellow photographers on this course say one of the reasons why they are doing a Photography degree is because they prefer to be behind the camera not in-front of it. The portraiture project we have been given I feel is designed to confront both sides of sitter and photographer. Having the camera turned around on you is a frightening prospect; there are not many people who say they enjoy being photographed. In my experience which I recently found out, being the subject of an image is terrifying mainly because you don’t want to confront what the camera records. It’s overwhelming having lights surrounding you and a camera pointing at you like the barrel of a gun, it puts you in a very compromising position. In a way what I want to explore is how your situation changes from photographer to sitter, two very distinct elements. David Bailey here is questioning both sides of photographer and subject in just one image. Here he shows his knowledge of the camera, the image, he stares into the lens with an intensity that shows he is not scared because he understands.
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