One of the world's most famous and influential photographers of rock stars and models, hidden tribes and poverty, glamour and squalor, is in Edinburgh to oversee the hanging of dozens of his works at the Scottish National Gallery.

But don't ask David Bailey how his celebrated art may affect other people.

Bailey, 77, in playful if slightly edgy mood at the press view for his major show, Bailey's Stardust, rose from modest beginnings in the east end of London to become one of the most well known photographers in the world in the 1960s, and ever since.

This writer, advised beforehand to call the 77-year-old only by his surname and avoid "chit chat", wondered if a similarly talented youth in Scotland might see the grand new show on The Mound and be inspired to pick up a camera.

Bailey, in a crumpled shirt and a colourful scarf, hurrumphed.

"I don't know, it's up to them. I can't tell them what to do. It could be anything, it might not be a camera, they might draw, it is just as easy to draw as it is to take a picture," he said.

"I mean you're a journalist, but I bet you are not f*cking Tolstoy are you? Or Graham Greene. Or TS Eliot.

"You've got the pencil and paper, and they've got the camera - it's up to them what they do."

The show, which runs until October 18, also features snaps taken by Bailey on a smart phone, as well as sculptures, oil paintings and other works.

Bailey does not believe the prevalence of mobile phone cameras has affected the art of photography too much.

He said: "Same thing happened in 1886 [actually 1900] when Kodak brought out the Box Brownie, people said 'Oh, this will finish photography because anyone can do it' - it didn't work out did it?

"Same thing."

So talent is still important, I venture.

"I'm not sure it's 'talent', it's the way you are. Art schools can't teach you to be an artist, they can teach you techniques, how do deal with dealers and things like that, hard brush or soft brush, but you cannot teach art, it's unteachable - it's like teaching someone love."

But everyone falls in love, the reporter suggests.

"I don't know everyone, so I can't answer that."

The show which opens tomorrow is a survey of his images of the beautiful and famous - John Lennon, Mick Jagger, Jerry Hall, Jack Nicholson, Kate Moss and Jean Shrimpton - as well as his harrowing documentary work of the 1984 famine in Ethiopia/Sudan, candid shots of his native east end of London and Papua New Guinea as well as a room of portraits of his wife, Catherine Bailey (nee Dyer), and his children.

Bailey spent six days with gallery staff hanging the show, which has previously been shown in Italy, France and the National Portrait Gallery in London.

Many of the works on the walls of the RSA building are black and white.

He said: "It's completely different to London. This show is great because this space, its logical, each room is almost a show in itself.

"I prefer black and white, because it gets straight to the message. With colour, you see the colour first and then you get to the message. The message being whatever you want to make in the picture.

"If you make a bad movie, change it to black and white and put Polish subtitles on it and its art."

Bailey is a fan of Scotland, he said. He said Edinburgh is "up there with Prague and Venice - it's a fantasy".

"I seduced my wife on the Isle of Skye - I couldn't go wrong. It was midsummer day too," he said.

"It was on a shoot for Italian Vogue, I don't do holidays.

"Edinburgh is unique, and fantastic."

In addition to over three hundred photographs, the exhibition features material from Bailey’s personal archive, which includes book and magazine covers.

A separate show within the show is called Moonglow, in a red painted room, which features works of art, oil paintings and his Dartmoor Series, where he exposes photographs mounted on canvasses to the ravages of nature.