"Photography, which was a trade, has now become art."

June 5, 2010 4:22 AM

Brian Duffy, one of the 'Terrible Trio' photographers of the 1960s, has died aged 76. Duffy, along with fellow working-class London boys David Bailey and Terence Donovan, revolutionised fashion photography with a brash, sexual, personal style and helped to define the Swinging Sixties.

Duffy went on to photograph the great and the good and the not-so-good, but his best-known shot was probably the Aladdin Sane cover. In the 1970s he turned to advertising and created shots for the landmark Benson & Hedges campaign. Feeling that photography was 'dead', in 1979 he famously attempted to burn all his negatives. Despite not having the enduring success of his two counterparts, he enjoyed a revival and was the subject of a BBC Four documentary in the last few years.

He has a bit of previous on MeTa

posted by criticalbill (3 comments total)

I gotta hand it to him for opening his website on this quote from Gore Vidal: "For the past 25 years, photography has been the art form of the untalented."
posted by Faze at 6:30 AM on June 5, 2010

So let me get this straight - he envied Avedon & Penn for being bolder, more imaginative photographers than he was, and as a result, he blames them for destroying all of photography, since, by 1972, all the good pictures had been taken.

Next, they ruined dying by doing it before he did.
posted by kcds at 7:41 AM on June 5, 2010

Not familiar with him before this but he's taken some great photos including the one of Debbie Harry and the ones Keith Waterhouse who wrote one of my favorites "Billy Liar".

Thanks for the great post!
posted by ericthegardener at 11:23 AM on June 5, 2010