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‘Old and New’ – Can Bailey’s classic work be recreated through the retro Olympus E-P1?!

As renowned British portrait photographer David Bailey celebrated his 72nd birthday on the 2nd of January it seemed fitting that we should review an Olympus camera – the retro-styled E-P1 - in the style of his most popular portraits.

A Box of Pinups was produced in 1964 and starred some of the most iconic celebrities of that ‘swing’ era. Shooting on black and white film using a Rolleiflex medium format camera gave a very distinct style and one that has been mimicked by photography students to the present day. Bailey was one of the original photographers to break the rules of photography, cropping off the tops of his models heads and using different angles than the conventional eye level shooting.

My brief was to recreate these distinct, exciting photos from a time when youth ruled and a new scene was set. For the shoot I would have to use studio lighting but thankfully due to the improvements in technology I would only need half the lights and space that Bailey would have required for his photographs.

The Olympus E-P1 was the chosen camera as it provided both the functionality and compact design that I wished to operate with. It also seemed fitting that the camera was styled in a retro fashion to mimic the original Olympus Pen design. Having set the camera’s white balance to flash and the correct exposure it was clear that this camera can perform in exactly the same way as a conventional Digital SLR but, thankfully, the camera provided a few more useful features.

Allowing users to configure the cameras aspect ratio to 4:3, 3:2, 16:9, and crucially 6:6 (Square) saved me having to perform a tedious post-editing task. Offering low and high key, shooting styles meant that the images are close to perfect straight out of the camera. I intended on shooting the photos in high key style as Bailey’s used in ‘A Box of Pinups’ and thus recreating his photos was even easier.

The composed nature of capturing images with this camera allows you to ensure your models posture is correct or capture a moment in time that you would have otherwise missed. To integrate this camera with studio lighting is no more stressful than using a £16 Kenro hot shoe sync adapter and plugging in the sync leads provided with the Bowens Gemini 400/400 Studio Lighting Kit.

To obtain Bailey’s look in my shots I used a Kenro Pop Up Background, two studio lights, one combined with a Bowens 2560 S Type Backlite Reflector and the other with a Bowens 1884 S Type Supersoft 600 Reflector. These parts are all logical and straightforward to operate and only took a few moments to set up and obtain the look that I wanted for my shoot.

Overall I was very pleased with the way that all these parts operated together despite their different target markets, thus proving that the camera can be suited to any situation and provide you with high quality photos even if you ask more of it than Olympus thought you ever would. As a Canon user I thought that I would struggle adapting to the different menu style and button layout, I am pleased to report after five minutes familiarisation anyone can operate this camera regardless of your camera background and therefore it can be a second camera to any Digital SLR user that wants a compact body but to retain the functionality of a Digital SLR.

Words and photos by Andy Finnen.

Kit used in our David Bailey-inspired shoot