Portrait Unit: David Bailey

Jack Nicholson by David Bailey
http://justtpictures.wordpress.com/2012/05/09/carla-bruni-by-michael-comte/

Analysing the photo: When looking at portraits of a similar nature, it is always important to first look at who the portrait is of, and then how it relates to the person and their personality or how they are represented. This photograph was of Jack Nicholson, a famous actor who is one of the most well paid and famous actors in Hollywood. He is well known for his roles in such films as 'The Shining', a film where he is depicted to be a murderous psychopath. I believe he was chosen for this role because of his every day type of appearance. As covered in class, we thought that Nicholson was the type of person you could walk past in the street and not look twice, if he wasn't so well known. This is probably why he was hired, emphasising that psychopaths look like every day people and it's hard to tell who is one and who isn't. He played different roles throughout his career where he has played cynical and menacing characters: for instance his role as The Joker in 'Batman'. I believe before the shoot, David Bailey thought that he could capture this dark side to an every day person. He achieved this by using selective lighting at an angle that brought emphasis to one side of his face, leaving the other completely in darkness. You can tell by this photo, that Bailey didn't want his model to dress up fancily nor do a pose that imposed some type of style. When discussing the way Nicholson facial posture in this photo, a lot of the class thought that it was one of anger. However, I have believed that ever seeing this photo when covering it in GCSE, that there was something comedic about this photo. I gathered this from the way his mouth is perched in a square shape, leading me to think that it wasn't a spontaneous pose but more of an imitation of someone or him trying to be farcical. I think the most successful thing in this photo which makes it so interesting, as stated, was the fact that the front lighting has made one side of his face in complete darkness, along side his ordinary appearance I believe that it sets across a message that 'every body has a dark side'. 

Will Smith by David Bailey
http://thebectoriousonemycareerpath.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/david-bailey-portraits.html

Analysing David Bailey's style of portraits: I think the David Bailey's style of portraits are interesting in the fact that he likes to keep in B&W. He likes to make his photos very simplistic and as such create an underlying message to all of his photos. He can achieve an interesting vibe to his photos by using creative head lighting and making them very contrasty. One thing I've noticed, in my opinion, is that he seems to challenge the personas of celebrities by capturing them in a stereotypical light that shows their imposed idea of the general public and highlights it in a way that his subject is aware of and acknowledges. For instance, when he shot Will Smith, he made him pull at his ears and puff up his mouth like he was a monkey. Smith was well known for having large ears, and being black he had been brought up where race was a larger issue than what it is now. So I believe that highlighting these two things was powerful in the sense that it showed the celebrity was aware of the fact people had mocked him in the past and was now carefree. I think that Bailey did something similar in his shoot with actor Jack Nicholson because he showed the psychopathic character which he is normally portrayed to be, with adding the personal flare that his facial expressions suggested. 

Neil & Helena by Luke Mellor/Baker
http://www.flickr.com/photos/luke_mellor/8208045729/in/photostream/

Comparing my work to David Bailey's: In these two digital pictures, I tried to replicate a similar effect to my photos that David Bailey achieves by using different lighting and plain backgrounds. I think that the lighting has been effective in copying his style of work. When doing portraits I have to say that I prefer doing studio work like Bailey does. Most like to go outside and be inventive and 'artistique', however I much prefer the straight on plain background, dual tone type of portrait. After experimenting in this type of portraiture I grew on my last portrait session with models where I used head lighting. (attached below)
I think that studying David Bailey has been successful in growing my creative knowledge and letting me have more of an insight to my own personal style.

am Hair Salon model for catalog by Luke Mellor/Baker
http://www.flickr.com/photos/luke_mellor/8208812345/in/photostream

When looking at the the photo above the lighting that I've chosen lacks originality and creativeness. As such this doesn't make it a very interesting photo to look at and doesn't give any type of aesthetic element to it that could make it have any underlying message or meaning. This is something that David Bailey, I believe, tries to creative in his photos.