The premise of this book couldn’t be simpler: 130 photographs of Damien Hirst taken by David Bailey during a single shoot lasting eight minutes. Each pose is spontaneous and determined not by Bailey but by Hirst, who mocks the camera with his tongue poked out, mouth open wide and hands pulling at his cheeks. These photos are humble and unrehearsed, and so continue the sprit of Bailey’s Democracy in which Bailey photographed a cross-section of naked subjects, shunning issues of composition, lighting and digital manipulation. Renouncing text and even a title page, 8 Minutes resists formulaic over-designed coffee-table publications. Bailey’s roguish message: what you see is what you get. David Bailey, born in London in 1938, is one of the most successful photographers of his generation. By the 1960s his work, especially for Vogue, had already made him a cult figure. His numerous books include Trouble and Strife, Nudes, If We Shadows, The Lady Is a Tramp and David Bailey’s Rock ’n’ Roll Heroes. Steidl has published Birth of the Cool, Chasing Rainbows, Locations, Bailey’s Democracy, Havana, NY JS DB 62, Pictures That Mark Can Do and Is That So Kid.
