I’ve kept the copyright of all my pictures and that’s my pension

I’ve kept the copyright of all my pictures and that’s my pension. Not that I’m planning to retire.”Sex, innate talent, an inexhaustible energy and a winning charm got Bailey out of family background, a lack of education and the East End and into Vogue, commercials, art galleries, “Swinging London” and the big time. We still think of him as played by David Hemmings in Antonioni’s film, Blow Up. Bailey turned down the lead role.What happens then, at 56, when the tummy has filled out, the barnet is salt and pepper, his wife is a fixed feature on the domestic landscape and “Swinging London” is the stuff of pop history, revivals and nostalgia? The old sex thing can’t work like it used to, either, surely? “Nah,” says Bailey. It’s not stopping that keeps me going.”I like the joke about the young bull and the old bull standing on top of the hill looking at a herd of cows below `I know, let’s run down and fuck one,’ says the young bull. `Nah,’ says the old bull, `let’s walk down and fuck them all.’ I’m the old bull now.” Even if I’ve got to slow down one day, you’ll have a hard job keeping up, I’ll promise you that.”I’m too interested in what’s going on That and keeping ahead of the game I’ve got every bit of computer stuff going on. Doesn’t worry me if we all end up working on CD-Rom or whatever You’ve got to be up with the times, keep inside the track.

No one changes anything from the outside, do they?”Look what happened to Donovan [Terence Donovan, the fashion photographer and Bailey's close friend and contemporary who killed himself before Christmas] Reckoned it was all going bad New technology The end of the craft and the art of photography Everyone wanking about with computers He couldn’t make sense of what was changing around him It got him down. I say fuck them, if they want computers then I’m going to see what the fuckers can do and do it better than wanky, nerdy types who use computers to make everything dull.”The trouble with the computer in the media and advertising is that it can make a bad photographer look average and a good photographer look average too It encourages the overuse and abuse of images It’s killing the image. It’s a pick ‘n’ mix sort of tool and I don’t think much of that. Used as a creative paintbrush, though, the whole thing’s fine. I remember when Bill Brandt [British photographer famous for chiaroscuro portraits of British people and townscapes] used to get out a 4B pencil to blacken his prints and people would gasp in horror as if the geezer was committing some sort of crime. He was just being creative, producing images better than anyone else’s. That’s what it’s about.”When a student at the D&AD lecture asks Bailey what advice he has for today’s photography students, he says: “Screw the teachers.

Concentrate on doing what you believe in and keep doing it as well as you can You might make it, you might not But at least you will have pleased yourself. There’s no point setting out to please other people, because you end up despising yourself and that’s no help in the business of making images.”Keeping ahead of the pack, staying inside the track, doing what he believes in. Bailey practises what he preaches and he has never lacked the right breaks “Do you think you’ve been lucky?” someone asks “Of course I’ve been lucky Lucky for being in the right place at the right time I mean, imagine if Jesus had been born today. Priests and fashion victims would be wearing electric chairs around their necks rather than crosses, wouldn’t they? My pictures caught a mood when I was 20 and 25. Yes, I was very lucky.”Lucky, but clearly different, a young man who stood out from the crowd “I suppose I was always a bit off as a kid. I mean, I hated all the things an East End boy was meant to love, and I still hate football and all that stuff I’ve always preferred women and making images My dad was an East End tailor I was circumcised I thought I was a Jew until I was 15. That was odd, especially as Aunty Dolly was a right fascist – hated blacks and Jews and, well, everyone really, except me and mum We’d all go to the pictures, eight times a week.