Tony Ray-Jones
"Mention photography and the 1960s and you immediately think of fashion photographers, ultra slim models - a world in black and white. That is not the full story.
Today his name is virtually unknown outside photographic circles, but Tony Ray-Jones was arguably the person who shaped a generation of British photographers.
Between 1966 and 1969 he worked tirelesly to capture his vison of the English, their rituals and customs and to promote photography as an art form."
"His self-confidence was honed in the US, where he studied at Yale and attended the Design Lab run by the great art directorAlexey Brodovitch in the early 60s in Richard Avedon's studio. On his return to London in 1965, Ray-Jones began photographing his abiding subject: the English at play. The street and the seaside were his main stomping grounds, but he also photographed the essentially English rituals of Eton boarding school and the Glyndebourne opera festival, as well as beauty contests and pop festivals."
The photography of Tony Ray Jones;
as what we could class as a documentary photographer, Tony Ray Jones focused on capturing photographs of the british public. As you can see all of the images are very different from one another in terms of whats going on in the images, however i would feel its fair to say that by looking at each image separating and the images as a collective it is easy to tell these photographs have been taken in britain of british people.
images from;
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/visitmuseum/plan_your_visit/exhibitions/only_in_england.aspx
Beachy Head boat trip, 1967 by Tony Ray-Jones
Beauty contestants, Southport, Merseyside, 1967 by Tony Ray-Jones
I really like how interesting this image is, in the way that whats happening in the image all seems so random and doesn't exactly look like they fit together. For example the beauty contestant women right next to and old man just minding his own business having a cuppa. The images almost feels as though it has some slight humour within it. For me, the most interesting aspect is the expressions and actions the blonde beauty contestant is making. It doesn't seem to be very glamorous like what you'd expect from a beauty contestant. My eye is also drawn to the one person in the image who has clocked eyes with the camera, this draws attention to the background of the image. I like this idea of having and image of several people and managing to capture just one person who seems to have noticed the camera.
Blackpool, 1968 by Tony Ray-Jones
Again in this image this concept of only character noticing the camera can be seen. This therefore draws the eye from the main subject of interest to the foreground of the image.
Some of the images Tony Ray Jones captured were of quite unusual but very British festivals, social customs, and traditions.
http://www.tumblr.com/search/tony+ray+jones
Coconut dancers, 1960's
What i instantly think of when looking at this image is of the work of martin parr. For those who are familiar with the work of martin parr you would be able to see very clear similarities in this piece and martin Parr's work. Martin Parr apparently took influence from the work of tony ray jones.
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