This way for the exhibition at the National Media Museum
In contact; the contact sheets of Tony Ray-Jones, left, and above, a board giving details of his history
Quintessential England Report and Pictures by Stewart Wall StewartWall@icloud.com
”H
Jo Quinton-Tulloch, Head of the National Media Museum, opens the Bradford International Film Festival and the exhibition of Only In England
Only In England amuses viewers at Bradford
ERE THEY COME. The bloody English... in their Zephyrs, Wolseleys and Anglias. Off to their beauty pageants, caravan parks and penny arcades. Off on their day trips and annual marches. Off to watch the children’s parade. Off to their dog shows and fancy-dress competitions. To eat their buns under umbrellas. To sit in deckchairs in their suits and ties.”
So begins writer Mick Jackson’s tribute to the Only In England exhibition, featuring the work of Tony Ray-Jones and Martin Parr, currently being hosted by the National Media Centre in Bradford. A wet evening welcomed us to the launch of the exhibition, a contrast to many of the sunny scenes taken by iconic photographer Tony Ray-Jones. Sixty of
Cloakroom: somewhere to store all the wet coats
Michael Pritchard, Hazel Blackwell and Geoff Blackwell
his previously unseen images were selected by Martin Parr, himself a well-known photographer who credits Tony RayJones as being his inspiration. The exhibition, which is running from 28 March-29 June 2014 in Galleries One and Two, also includes previously displayed work by Ray-Jones and Parr, and shows how the two photographers were fascinated by the English population at large. Media Museum Curator Greg Hobson chose Martin Parr to
by Tony Ray-Jones, he realised they had both been covering an event at the same time. It is obvious Parr would love to have met Ray-Jones. He speculates that they might even have seen each other at that event. I share a similar feeling. For a time, I lived in the same remote hamlet in Essex as Tony RayJones – Little Baddow near Chelmsford – though not at the same time. We also seemed to share similar passions as we have both toured the UK in a camper van.
select the images as throughout his career Parr has repeatedly referred to Tony Ray-Jones as being the singular most important influence on how he shoots his own work. Tony Ray-Jones died suddenly at the age of 30 in 1972. Greg Hobson talked of the interaction between Parr and Ray-Jones although it can only be seen in their images as the two never actually met. In the film that Greg showed, Parr reports that while he was going through 2500 contact prints
As Greg Hobson pointed out, Tony Ray-Jones is not well known outside of the world of photographers, possibly as he died so young. During his life he never published any books nor had major exhibitions. This is such a shame.
I
was born in 1961 and my own childhood memories are full of the sort of scenes Tony Ray-Jones was shooting. I guess this is also true for a lot of you reading this article. When
I look at the images I cannot easily recall the styles of clothing but the images help. They also remind me of the National Health glasses that people wore before chains such as Specsavers became established, and of the singular style adopted by men’s barbers at the time. I think anyone from England viewing this exhibition will see familiarity. I was amazed to see an image of Jaywick Sands in Essex. I know Jaywick very well. It is a community of former holiday homes, now occupied all the time, and was once categorised as the most deprived district in Britain. I used to park up on the exact spot in the background of Tony Ray-Jones’s Jaywick Sands image. I would pour a cup of coffee and start to read a newspaper. People in the tight-knit area knew my car and would approach to ask if I could take their photographs. I would book them in for a shoot in their home the following day. I only had this approach to “sales” in Jaywick and I had forgotten about it until I saw the Continued on Page 2
Celebrating personalities
Museum curator Greg Hobson tells the launch about the planning process for Only In England
From Page One image in the exhibition. One often-debated topic is the way contemporary photographers approach the subject of technical quality. Some say that some contemporary photographers appear sloppy in this area. I have always struggled to give a good answer but Greg Hobson’s talk provided one. Tony Ray-Jones was influenced by America and in particular Robert Frank’s book The Americans. Ray-Jones noticed that Robert Frank was more concerned with the content of the photograph than technical quality. Tony Ray-Jones was a highly competent commercial photographer earning his living from photographing cars but for his passion to record life he adopted a practice of not letting factors such as prevailing light and technical quality get in the way of an interesting image. It was interesting to hear that the museum has brought back to life some of the images. Scanning the often badly scratched negatives on high resolution scanners at the museum, the now digital images were sent to Martin Parr’s studio for careful retouching. As was the style of the day in Tony RayJones’s time he would print the
Back to back: Martin Parr’s study of Sarah Hannah Greenwood for his Non-Conformists project
Colourful personality: one of the visitors at the National Media Museum images heavily with deep blacks but the museum decided to bring out detail from the dark areas. Walls with graffiti sprung to life. Greg Hobson passed comment that he was not totally sure about this approach and I know where he is coming from. I also agreed with him when he said that you
can’t compete with the originals as forever in your mind with an original you will always be remembering that this is another artist’s work. The cosmopolitan crowd that turned out for the opening seemed to enjoy the evening. I bumped into RPS Director
What’s not to like? People admiring the work on display at the Only In England exhibition at the National Media Museum in Bradford
General Michael Pritchard FRPS and RPS Council member Geoff Blackwell ACCA ARPS and his wife Hazel. Michael will have a new fan in my Mum as he caught a photograph of me smiling. When you walk around this exhibition I think it would be hard not to smile.
Busy: Some of the attentive audience at the launch
A notebook belonging to Tony RayJones showed how he planned his visits to different towns