Photographer In 2013 Bailey-Gates met photographer
Ryan McGinley and became a
protégé of the artist. Bailey-Gates later debuted his body of work "A Horse The Rough" with New York Times in 2018. The pictures referenced early motion-study photographs "without the gender norms traditional to classical portraiture". In 2021, Bailey-Gates’ first solo exhibition, "A Glint In The Kindling", was hosted at The Ravestijn Gallery, in
Amsterdam. Chantal McStay, in a
New York Times Style Magazine review of the exhibition, stated the photographs on display "evoked the aesthetics of classical portraiture as they upend conventions of gender and beauty." This body of work was published as the inaugural book by Pinch publishing in 2021. In 2021 Bailey-Gates was the subject of
homophobic backlash after releasing a self portrait commissioned for a
Valentino campaign. The brand's designer,
Pierpaolo Piccioli, condemned the backlash over the Valentino image. Horace D. Ballard, in
Aperture Magazine, describes Bailey-Gates’ photography as redefining traditional portraiture through "queer, neoclassical portraits" and notes his specialties in
portraiture,
studio and
tableau photography.
Model Bailey-Gates has modeled for the brands
DKNY and
CK One as well as for the publications
i-D,
Arena Homme +, and
Interview. In 2016, Michael Bailey-Gates appeared in his boyfriend Thomas Whiteside's book
Route 1, Mike and India. ==Awards and honors==