Tears and tears

Determining the perfect exposure time for a photographic print in a traditional darkroom can be a time-consuming and tedious process, and the irreverent David Bailey has never had much patience for it. Normally a photographer makes a number of test strips, each showing different exposure times; but Bailey has always just intuitively torn off strips of the unexposed paper to fi nd the desired result: “I would usually have it in the bag after three tears.” Over the decades Bailey has kept his “test tears,” re-fixing and washing them to preserve the unpredictable and unique qualities of these “accidents.” This book contains a selection of Bailey’s tears, which transform some of his most famous motifs into fascinating abstract pictures through their torn edges and myriad tones.