It takes a lot of imagination to be a good photographer. You need less imagination to be a painter because you can invent things. But in photography everything is so ordinary; it takes a lot of looking before you learn to see the extraordinary.

In 1972 rock musician Alice Cooper was photographed by Bailey for Vogue magazine almost naked apart from a snake. Cooper used Bailey the following year to shoot for the groups chart topping 'Billion Dollar Babies' album with one billion dollars and a baby wearing mascara being shot under armed guard. Artists by David Bailey.

In 2012 the BBC made a film of the story of his 1962 New York photoshoot with Jean Shrimpton. Along with Terence Donovan and Brian Duffy he captured and helped create the 'Swinging London' of the 1960s. Born in East London he became a photographic assistant at the John French studio then photographer for John Cole's Studio Five before being contracted as a fashion photographer for British Vogue magazine in 1960.