THE EYES HAVE IT: Richard Bailey shot this striking portrait of Mila (@born2miracle) in 2015
Richard Bailey: a talented genre-fluid ’tog with a flair for fetish.
Richard Bailey doesn’t actually identify as a fetish photographer. But the quality of the fetish and alt-fashion imagery he’s produced in the last five years make it inevitable that he’s labelled as such. This interview, covering his work with Amentium and other designers, and with model pals he tags ‘the usual suspects’, probably won’t do much to change that impression. Words by Tony Mitchell. Top banner image by Richard Bailey: Helen and Gigi in Amentium and Broke Boutique
It’s quite possible that, like me, you first became aware of Richard ‘Busha’ Bailey’s work through his regular role as ‘house photographer’ for Amentium Latex.
Our October 2017 cover story introducing Amentium designer Helen Teiman to The Fetishistas’ audience was illustrated exclusively with photography by Bailey, styled by his Stush Productions partner April Storm.
Today Richard Bailey and Helen Teiman remain firm friends, and the creative collaboration between them is still going strong.
In fact, it was their recent work together shooting Amentium’s first collection featuring latex for men (covered in the companion piece to this article – link at bottom of p2) that suggested the time had come to present Bailey as a creative force in his own right.
One thing to be said immediately is that, despite the current breadth of his ‘alt’ portfolio, Richard doesn’t identify as a fetish photographer, preferring the term genre fluid photography to describe his work.
“It’s interesting that I’ve been pigeonholed as a fetish photographer,” he says, “because it was not something I set out to do — or was even aware that I was considered to be — until quite recently.
“The truth is that I had no plan at all when I started. It was after my second ever shoot with a model that she asked me if I would be happy to shoot her in latex, and the idea interested me.
“We arranged a date and got some latex from Westward Bound and things snowballed from there.”
A naturally curious person
Richard Bailey is, he says, a naturally curious person “particularly with regard to anything anthropological”. As a youngster he preferred the part-work encyclopaedia Family of Man to comics, and was always drawn to things outside of social convention: things that were dark, subversive or just plain weird.
“I find this subcultural layer aesthetically pleasing and generally more fun. I love anything quirky,” he confesses. He also owns up to a short attention span “which means I need to vary my photography projects to keep my enthusiasm fresh”.
“I hope,” he adds, “that it also means there is some organic artistic crossover between my fetish work and my more mainstream projects and vice versa.”
The earliest online examples of Bailey’s fetish work I could find date back to 2014, but he actually started taking photography seriously somewhat earlier.
“I started photography in 2010 after I stopped racing motor bikes,” he explains casually (so, not a thrill-seeker then). “I always need an outlet. A client of mine, a very high profile cinematographer, had always urged me to take up still photography as a way of expressing myself creatively.
“After experimenting with various types of photography I suppose it was inevitable that I would gravitate towards taking pictures of humans. Initally this was within the Cosplay scene because again, this was (at the time) outside of the norms.”
His first latex shoot was actually in 2013 — the outcomes were “not my most successful”, he admits.
Inspired by watching a coJac shoot
Then in 2014 he travelled to Rotterdam to watch photographer coJac, a Fetishistas favourite, on set with a couple of models. It gave him the confidence to start submitting his own work to magazines.
“I shot with Virus Infekt while in Rotterdam, and not only got published in Twisted Edge magazine but got the cover too! This was for me an affirmation that my skills were improving.”
Since then he has shot a lot more latex — with Amentium and others — and recently started doing some “selective” shibari shoots.
“This is a genre I had stayed away from as most of the images I saw just looked to me like someone tied up looking uncomfortable!”, he explains. But now:
“We have a pretty slick team with Tia Oguri doing styling, @Nikyourknots rigging and Agnes Nowacka doing hair and make-up. It has been very pleasing to get these images published in vanilla fashion publications such as Creators Mag.”
At the back end of last year, Bailey signed up for a fashion photography course at Central St Martins. At the time, he was considering the possibility of either doing a masters degree or going pro.
“The course was useful not for anything technical, but in terms of realising I was doing everything the right way to go professional.
“The lecturers were both high profile fashion photographers shooting campaigns for the
likes of Dior and Bulgari. They both gave great insights into how to ‘make it’, and encouraged me to move forward in that direction.”
The experience probably played a part in persuading Richard Bailey to give up his day job in January — a move that suggests to me the day job’s loss will be fetish photography’s gain.
“Photography for me began as a creative outlet, albeit one that consumed almost all of my free time. This led to an epiphany when I realised I hated my job and that I could survive on less money and enjoy my life more fully.
Berlin and Prague on the agenda
“So from 2020 I will be doing more photography of all kinds. I have already agreed to cover the German Fetish Ball and Prague Fetish Weekends for designers with shows.”
“I am also planning a lot more test shoots and fashion stories which will almost certainly have fetish undertones, if not overtones!”
Incidentally, Busha (a corruption of ‘Basher’) is a nickname Richard Bailey acquired many moons ago. He decided to use it as an alias on Facebook and Instagram to separate his fetish/alt work from the other areas of his life.
But, he explains, nobody actually calls him ‘Busha’. “Or if they do, it’s not for long,” he cautions.
At the time of our original Amentium cover story, all Richard’s photography was co-credited to Stush Productions and the multi-talented April Storm.
April provided the kind of professional polish that, for budgetary reasons, is sometimes lacking on fetish shoots. How did their partnership come about?
“I tend to work with people I know, like and trust,” says Bailey. “I hate expending energy on sorting out other people’s dramas or distractions. I like a very relaxed set but I want to get the job done.
“My motto is ‘keep it simple, make it fun’. This is why my portfolio has a lot of shoots with the ‘usual suspects’. April and I hit it off from the moment we met and we started working together a lot. So much so that it was a natural progression to make it official.
“These days April is concentrating on the day job and only joins the team when time allows, unfortunately. But I’ve kept the brand alive and may use it for work outside the fetish genre.”
Bailey’s work with Amentium
Talk of creative partnerships inevitably turns the conversation to Bailey’s legendary collaborations with Amentium’s Helen Teiman. How did that all start?
“Helen and I met by luck,” he explains. “I was let down at the last minute by another designer a few days before I was leaving to shoot Virus again in Rotterdam.
“Helen responded positively and lent us some wonderful garments for the shoot. She must have liked the images because she then asked if I would shoot her new collection at The Pit in Nottingham.
“It’s a wonder she ever booked me again as I and two of the models turned up on the morning absolutely hanging and having had only two hours sleep! My first words to Helen were: ‘We are fucked’.”
But Helen overlooked this self-confessed unprofessionalism and continued to work with him. She is now one of his best mates and they work as a team.
“We both have the same outlook and tastes to the extent where we don’t have to storyboard or have big discussions about how the shoot is going to work.
“She just says, ‘Right, I need you to shoot this’, and leaves me to it.”
This, adds Bailey, is how the most recent shoot for her Rewired collection evolved. “She said, ‘I want an editorial style set of images for my new collection with two female models and one male’.
“We knew we wanted Holly who is a good friend and one of the original models at The Pit, and we both liked new girl Gracie who we’d met once before.
“Craig is a new face and was scouted by Helen. He did a grand job of the shoot and handling all the banter that came at him!”
Mention of Holly and banter reminds me of an image (below right) of a scowling Holly, posted on Facebook in November 2019, which Bailey captioned thus:
“I think this light test with @holly.a.t a few weeks back really conveys the pure joy and sense of wellbeing that a shoot with me invokes. Looking forward to more shits and giggles with her this weekend.”
READ MORE – GO TO PAGE 2 OF 2‘I tend to work with people I know, like and trust. My motto is: keep it simple, make it fun. This is why my portfolio has a lot of shoots with the usual suspects’
BELOW, LEFT: Richard with Stush co-founder April Storm. RIGHT: Holly enjoying her lighting test
Tags: Designers, Latex, Leather, Lingerie, Models, Photographers
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