brian duffy essay
TRANSCRIPT
Isabelle Fletcher Unit Three Brian Duffy
“The Man who Shot the Sixties” – Brian Duffy and his iconic fashion
photography
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Isabelle Fletcher Unit Three Brian Duffy
Brian Duffy was one of the first and most famous documentary-style fashion photographers
from the 1960s; along with David Bailey and Terence Donovan, they created the iconic
“Swinging Sixties” images. An example of one of Duffy’s most famous works was the 1973
David Bowie ‘Aladin Sane’ cover. So how did Duffy’s work become so influential and what
inspired him to form a career in photography?
Together, Duffy, Donovan and Bailey, dubbed the Terrible Trio by the Sunday Times, were
on a mission to break free from typical studio fashion portraiture, which had previously
been seen as the only style by photographers such as Cecil Beaton. “Together they invented
a new style of documentary fashion photography. Their shots were looser, more
freewheeling, and decidedly energetic in contrast to the static posed shots that had come
before.”1
Brian Duffy (1933-2010) was born and raised in London to Irish parents and the eldest of
four children. After the outbreak of World War Two, he was evacuated as a child, to Wales,
along with his three siblings and mother. However, after only three weeks, their mother
insisted that the children all came home, so that they could still live together rather than
being apart. Duffy described himself as having the “most wonderful war”2 as he was free to
break in and burgle houses, terrorising his local neighbourhoods. In 1950, Duffy applied to
St. Martin’s School of Art with the intentions of becoming an artist. It was here, however,
where he was stunned at the talent of the other students and therefore decided to switch
to a dress-making course, largely influenced by the number of good-looking women. He
began to work as an assistant designer, which became useful later when it came to
photographing models, as he knew how their clothes should hang. He decided on a career in
1 Duffy, Baxter-Wright, E; Duffy, C. ACC Editions (30 Jun 2011)2 Duffy, Duffy, C. ACC Editions (30 Jun 2011)
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Isabelle Fletcher Unit Three Brian Duffy
photography, as he once said, “This looks dead easy compared to the drawing lark. I’ll give
this a wiz!”3
Duffy’s first job as a photographer was working as an assistant before moving on to names
such as Vogue until 1963 and then Elle. He is the only photographer to have been asked to
do shoots’ for the Perelli pin-up girl calendar twice. Duffy also was involved in a lot of
advertisement photography and claimed that they were just snapshots with no editing,
apart from occasionally tampering with camera filters.
Described by many as a bit of enigma and who was one for not giving interviews, Duffy is
famous for burning the majority of his negatives in 1979, as he decided that that was it, and
that he had had enough. He no longer wanted to do photography and felt that he had
achieved everything he possibly could gain out of it. Unfortunately, in May 2010, due to
suffering from terminal lung cancer, Duffy passed away. Luckily for us though, not all of
Duffy’s negatives and prints were destroyed, so there is something still left behind for us to
be able to enjoy and admire his work.
This is where I have been looking at Duffy as an influence for my work for Unit Three. I am
interested in fashion photography and wanted to create a variation in my portfolio. Upon
deciding to look in to what kind of fashion photography that I found interesting, I discovered
Brian Duffy and the style of documentary fashion. To me personally, this kind of fashion
photography style has more interest as it is not directly focused on one thing and the
background can give the image personality as well as say a lot about the model. What I find
interesting in Duffy’s work is that how he describes his photographs as “snapshots” (which
they may well be) but they have captured moments in time which makes you ponder as to
3 Duffy, Duffy, C. ACC Editions (30 Jun 2011)
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Isabelle Fletcher Unit Three Brian Duffy
what the photograph is trying to say, is there a story behind it, did he tell the models to do
certain things and how did he know when the right moment was to take it. This is what I like
about Duffy’s work as it makes me look at it for ages with fascination as well as making me
feel inspired by it.
By comparing my own work to Duffy, you
can see some similarities. I have tried not to
make my models too posed and try to have
a more natural and candid appearance in
the photographs. By doing this, I think this
can show through a person’s personality and
perhaps give the observer an idea of what
the model might be thinking. Even his studio
portraiture does not always appear directly
posed; an example of this is of his images of
Michael Cane. They have a quirky sort of personality to them, possibly reflecting Cane’s
actual own personality. The pose is very informal with a black canvas adding to a more
dramatic effect in the background. As Duffy said himself, his photographs’ do look dated but
with his images of Cane, they give a 1960s’ London Geezer vintage look which helps give an
insight in to the 1960s’ lifestyle.
As you can see in figure one, it’s a fine example of
Duffy’s “documentary fashion” and also of how his
work was so successful. Duffy, Donovan and
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Bailey’s style was to invent something new to the usual-posed, studio portraiture that had
previously been used. It looks like the photograph has been taken in such a simple and
candid way that could almost be chance but with skill. It stands out and has interest despite
there not being a lot in the photograph. The fact that you can’t see the model’s face shows
the style that of photography he was trying to adapt.
Figure Two shows an example of some of
Duffy’s work for Vogue. Duffy once said that he
only wanted to make his models look like they
owned the clothes that they wore. I think this
shows an example of him managing to succeed
in doing exactly that. The image is street
photography-based with a background that has
interest. It looks like he timed the image at just
the right moment, with the scooters on the left
part of the background, capturing a bit of the
“Swinging Sixties” culture. This is a clever technique due to the image having a long depth of
field; it creates the observer to look beyond the model in the image and not just have the
model directly to focus on. Duffy has also used the rule of thirds technique as the model is
slightly over to the right of the image.
It also appears to be a square format image and would have been taken on a Rolleiflex
camera. Although the Rolleiflex cameras with square format images had been around since
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Figure 2. Duffy, B. A fashion shot for Vogue, 1964
Isabelle Fletcher Unit Three Brian Duffy
1929, it was still a popular choice of camera, in the 1960s’, by photographers such as
Donovan and Diane Arbus.4
Figure 3 is one of the photographs’ that I have taken myself for Unit 3. Although I took this
on my digital SLR (Semi-lens reflex), I was trying to use a documentary fashion style by using
the tree as a background for the image. It was
also to try and add effect and more interest to the
image by curving her body to the shape of the
tree and having her look very candid in the image.
Due to the background being very bright with
light colours and as my model has very fair skin
and hair, it blends in quite well. I wanted to go for
quite a chic look quite like Duffy’s style with his
female models which I think works quite well for
this image. I have also used the rules of thirds
technique in this image which works well as I have
previously said with Figure 2; it doesn’t make the
observer focus specifically on the model or like
studio-posed-portraiture style, previously seen to Duffy’s style.
4 http://photo.tutsplus.com/articles/theory/a-guide-to-producing-beautiful-square-format-images/
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Figure 3. Fletcher, I. 2011.
Isabelle Fletcher Unit Three Brian Duffy
Duffy’s documentary fashion style is very
much focused around street photography
as Figures One, Two and Four show as
examples and Duffy for the majority of the
time uses urban settings. Figure Four would
have to have had the camera to have been
set on a high aperture to create a fast
shutter speed to capture the model only
holding the newspaper in the one hand.
Although, it looks slightly blurred so has not
captured it completely clear but it creates a focal point on the newspaper as well as the
model, especially as she appears to be reading it. The bottom of the image appears to be
slightly smudged, perhaps to either development or camera technical fault.
Figure 5 shows another example of Duffy’s chic Sixties
look with Westminster Bridge as the focal
background. The image has a shallow depth of field
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Figure 4. Fashion shot for Vogue, Duffy, B. Florence, Italy 1964
Figure 5. Duffy, B. 1961, Vogue, Westminster Bridge, London
Isabelle Fletcher Unit Three Brian Duffy
and again, Duffy has a very casual, candid look for the model which fits perfectly with the
changes of the 1960s’.
Figure Six is another example of
my work for Unit Three.
Although I haven’t gone for a
Duffy chic style, I wanted to use
an urban location to add an
overall grunge effect to the
image. I did this by using my
model smoking (like Duffy did in
many of his shots) and got him
to create a casual, candid pose by leaning up against the bin.
By using the bin as the centre of the image, by placing the model on the observer’s right-
side of it, it creates the rules of third technique (as seen used various times by Duffy). I
haven’t shot it on a particularly shallow depth of field and again for this, used my Canon
D100 SLR (Semi-lens-reflex) camera. By editing the image black and white in Photoshop, the
graffiti on the bin and also the use of the cigarette as a prop, it creates the grunge look that I
was going for and also captures a moment in time, very much the same technique that Duffy
was going for.
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Figure 6. Fletcher, I. 2011
Isabelle Fletcher Unit Three Brian Duffy
Duffy did also use the studio for
his shoots. An example of this (as I
have previously mentioned) is his
shoot for David Bowie’s “Aladin
Sane” cover. Despite only being a
headshot and on a plain white
canvas, the use of make up,
candid pose and lighting create an
interesting overall image. The use
of make-up is very vivid, eye capturing and bright which creates a sort of fantasy scene. To
create a very vibrant background for this image, Duffy would have used lighting on the
backdrop and also behind Bowie to not create shadows in the background.
By looking at a lot of Duffy’s photographs’, you can see an almost rebellious side to them;
which of course at the time, the 1960s’ was the time of change after the Conservative ways
of the 1950s’ and the Post-War era. Despite Duffy only thinking himself that he was taking
snapshots, regardless of whether they were any good or not and also to earn money for his
family. Whilst photographers’ such as Bailey did not have to do it as a money/job side of
things but as a glamorous thing and to spend time with his models.
The film producer, David Puttnam’s view on Duffy – “Brian Duffy was far more than a gifted
photographer; he was a uniquely constructive "social anarchist" who, through sheer force of
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Isabelle Fletcher Unit Three Brian Duffy
personality, helped push the stultifying conservatism of the 1950s into permanent retreat.
They may not know it, but every participant in what today would be referred to as the
"creative industries" will be forever in his debt. Being around Duffy could be explosive and
even alarming; but it was never, ever, dull.”5 This is indeed correct. Without Duffy, Donovan
and Bailey, the revolution in this style of fashion photography would perhaps never have
happened. Photographers’ in today’s world of documentary-style fashion photography
would owe their influences to these three men.
BibliographyWEBSITES
5 http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/jun/06/brian-duffy-obituary
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http://www.duffyphotographer.com/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00pwsns - BBC FOUR DOCUMENTARY: “BRIAN DUFFY – THE MAN WHO SHOT THE ‘60S”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/jun/06/brian-duffy-obituary
WEBSITES FOR PHOTOGRAPHS
http://www.flickriver.com/photos/52899036@N05/5517872085/
http://www.artface.co.uk/art-news/brian-duffy-at-the-lucy-bell-gallery-hastings/
BOOKS
Duffy, Duffy, C. ACC Editions (30 Jun 2011)
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