Back in 2019, Ian Bailey, the chief suspect in the murder of Sophie Toscan Du Plantier, went on trial in France ‘In Absentia’ for Sophie’s murder. Ian Bailey didn’t travel to France for obvious reasons, rather staying in West Cork.
The verdict in the trial was due to be announced on Friday 31st May. Every Friday in Bantry, the farmers market takes place and Ian Bailey always attends. I knew Ian would be at the market at some stage so set out with my cameras in an attempt to get some shots. On arrival in Bantry, I saw a staff photographer from an Irish national paper, but I was the only freelancer present. After a good hour of waiting I was about to give up and leave Bantry when I saw Ian Bailey, working his way from stall to stall.
Ian Bailey picture usage in the irish Sun on Sunday dated 27th June, 2021.
Whilst I was shooting a ton of pictures, I heard Mr. Bailey use the words ‘Media Feeding Frenzy’, which made me chuckle. He told bystanders he wasn’t aware as to why he was being photographed, but seeing as it was the day of the French verdict, it must have been pretty obvious.
After about 10 minutes of taking pictures, I had a ton of images and decided to leave Ian alone and go back to my car to send the photos to the various pictures desks. Unfortunately the staff photographer kept photographing Ian Bailey, even taking some shots whilst he was having a cup of coffee, which is something I wouldn’t do, because ethics…
Ian Bailey picture usage in the Irish Sun dated 26th June, 2021.
After headlining, captioning and editing the images, I carried on with my day as normal. Little did I know the amount of usages I’d get from these pictures! The Irish Sun, Southern Star, irish Daily Star, Irish Mirror, The UK Times all picked up the photos, both online and in print. I even managed to get the front page of the UK Times the next day.
Ian Bailey usage on the front page of The Times dated 1st June, 2019.
To this day the pictures have been used repeatedly, even more lately, as documentaries about the Du Plantier case have been aired on television. I actually appear in the Sky Crime documentary, made by Jim Sheridan, taking these pictures - have a look and see if you can spot me!
More ramblings about my life as a professional photographer to come soon. If there’s something about my job you want to find out, do leave a comment below and I’ll try and cover it in a future blog post. Until next time.