One of the best-known British photographers, David Bailey has got two exhibitions coming up at Hamiltons Gallery - Now, an exhibition of recent work, such as the image shown above; and Then, an exhibition of classic portraits from the swinging 60s and beyond. BJP took the opportunity to catch up with Bailey on the good old days, his current work, and his close friend and colleague, Brian Duffy, who died on 31 May.

BJP: So you’ve got an exhibition of pictures of skulls and flowers coming up, how long have you been working on that?

David Bailey: I first photographed skulls 30 years ago, at least I’ve got some great prints from 30 years ago. But I’ve been shooting them more seriously for the last three or four years, and I’ve been shooting flowers for the last couple of years.

BJP: Why did you choose to photograph them?

David Bailey: You’ve got to do something. We're currently working on two books, one on Delhi and the other a charity book on Afghanistan for Help for Heroes.

BJP: Yes, but why shoot flowers and skulls in particular?

David Bailey: Flowers are the first civilised thing in a way, when we started to grow things not to eat but to look at. Skulls are natural sculptures in a way and they’re our legacy, all that’s left in the end.

BJP: I noticed that straight after the Hamiltons show you’ve got an exhibition of your work from the 1960s there. You’ve been working for 50 years, but it’s often still your work from the 1960s that people reference when they think about you. What do you think about that?

David Bailey: Yeah, the awful '60s again. No, you have to live with it. It’s just journalists who think that’s all I’ve done. I’ve got another show coming up in September [at King’s Place gallery] of my sculptures. I do all kinds of things.

BJP: For a while though, you were better known for your film work [Bailey has shot many award-winning ads in the last 20 years].

David Bailey: I did commercial work to earn some money, but I won more awards in that than I ever got in photography! It was good. I made my first commercial in 1968 I think it was, and it made me a better photographer. Then there were 10 years when I was too busy shooting commercials to take many photographs. Now the bitch is back.

BJP: You’ve said that when you started working, fashion photography was dominated by lots of guys taking pictures of pink chiffon.

David Bailey: Some were good, [Cecil] Beaton was great – he wasn’t a very nice man but he was a great photographer. There were lots of good photographers around but I just caught a moment. 35mm cameras came along and suddenly we had more freedom. They were of their time. I like things that are of their time. Like David LaChapelle. His work is of its time so it’s interesting.

BJP: Which other contemporary photographers do you like?

David Bailey: It’s difficult to say, it takes time to know what’s good. You can’t be good in five years, you can only make an impact. Then if it gets old fashioned that means it wasn’t any good to start with, it must have been too fashionable. Art takes years to become great.

BJP: We heard recently the sad news that Brian Duffy died. How did you feel about that? Weren’t you close friends?

David Bailey: I’m fucked, I’ve got no one to argue with now. If you said “It’s a nice day” to Duffy he’d pick an argument with you, he was a cantankerous old fucker.

BJP: You, he and Terence Donovan were known as the Holy Trinity weren’t you?

David Bailey: The Holy Trinity, it was rubbish. It was just journalists not wanting to write about three nice boys [eg they were bad boys]. There was nothing shared, no style. We shared a class more than anything, though he wasn’t from the East End, he was from Kilburn or something [Duffy was born in North London]. It was nothing to do with our pictures.

BJP: It must have been an exciting time though, the three of you taking on the establishment?

David Bailey: It was an exciting time, but it’s an exciting time now. It’s what you do. You have to make it exciting. If it’s dull it’s because you’re dull.

BJP: Is it true you were with Duffy when he burnt his transparencies? [Duffy famously burnt most of his archive in 1979 after an assistant told him his studio had run out of toilet roll.]

David Bailey: I asked to store them for him. But everybody threw transparencies away in those days, you chose three or four and the rest went in the dustbin. It wasn’t just Duffy. I haven’t got much colour work from the 60s. The black-and-white was filed for printing so I’ve got that.

BJP: So why is there such a big myth about Duffy?

David Bailey: It comes from journalists. It’s something to hang it on “He burnt all his pics”. That creates a myth. Duffy knew that, we talked about it. At the time I said “I’ll file them for you,” because I had more room. He said “No I’m burning them” and I said “Fine, it’s up to you.”

BJP: So are you happy that photography has got more status now? You show your work in galleries now.

David Bailey: It’s great but I don’t care. It doesn’t matter where photography is shown, in magazines or in a gallery, it just has to be good.