Grand Guy Bruce Weber brought fash’ legend David Bailey about this afternoon, the hottest day of the year, to take pictures around the house with not-yet-on- the-market very yellow Nokia cell phone/cameras.  They’re shooting the commercial that will premiere this fall.  We’ve Vreeland in common and had a lively reminiscence.  Needless to say, it was an honor and a privilege.  I was always an admirer, as much of his masculine as photographic accomplishments: Jean Shrimpton (1961), Catherine Deneuve (married 1965), Jane Birkin, Marianne Faithful, Penelope Tree, Monica Vitti, Angelica Huston & Donyale Luna.  David Hemmings plays him in Antonioni’s Blow Up.  He photographed the Kray twins, the Rolling Stones when they were babies (cover, Out of Our Heads), the Beatles, Brian Epstein, the Who, Andy Warhol, Rudolf Nureyev, Roman Polanski, Sharon Tate and now, ta-da, Thometz.

“Well, it is like this,” he says, “I wanted to be Fred Astaire but I couldn’t, so I thought the next best thing was to be a fashion photographer.  Being of humble beginnings it was quite difficult, but easier than I make out – being of humble beginnings.”

Likewise, I’m sure.

D. Bailey, in the library, signing Another Image: Papua New Guinea. 

London: Mathews Miller Dunbar/Bailey Co-Production, 1975.