DAVID BAILEY

I never set out to be a photographer.

Being handsome wasn't much of a burden. It worked for me.

I hate men who are in touch with their feminine side.

I always look at people and think how I would cast them.

You adapt to who you're photographing.

I did painting before I did photography.

In '73 I photographed the cannibals in New Guinea. They treated me OK but they didn't make you feel relaxed... I managed to escape unscathed though, I'm pretty good at that.

I have never met an ugly woman.

Rockers are the nicest people to photograph. They have no inhibitions.

Sometimes I still can't believe my luck.

I like change. There's something Buddhist about it - continuous change is wonderful.

I was surrounded by strong women so it had never even occurred to me that women were anything other than equal to men.

I don't really like the term 'artist.' I'm not sure what it means. It's a bit like 'love.'

A positive attitude can really make dreams come true - it did for me.

All pictures are unnatural. All pictures are sad because they're about dead people. Paintings you don't think of in a special time or with a specific event. With photos I always think I'm looking at something dead.

Every man who is high up loves to think that he has done it all himself; and the wife smiles, and lets it go at that.

I don't think global warming is to do with us, I think it's a natural circle. I don't think a few Ferraris make that much difference.

The skull is nature's sculpture.

I don't feel very optimistic in London.

I'm not political and I don't judge.

My paintings are rubbish.

My father was a tailor, my mother a machinist.

I've always tried to do pictures that don't date.

It's not about composition. It's the way you feel about how your objects should relate to each other. I've got lots of African statues and things, and the cleaner arranges them like soldiers, which drives me mad. So I have to rearrange them, and I must drive her mad, because I'm doing anarchy and she's doing military manoeuvres.

I didn't know I was going to live for 50 years. It has come as a shock.