Yet away
from the glamour of the fashion scene, a new breed of social photographers was
emerging. And one of those was Tony Ray-Jones whose pictures helped define
photography in the 1970s and beyond, despite his death from leukaemia aged 30
in 1972.
From 21
September an exhibition of his work, Only in England, is on show at Media Space
in London. It features more than 100 works drawn from the 2,700 contact sheets
and negatives held at the National Media Museum, many of which have been
selected by photographer Martin Parr.
In
addition to this, a selection of rarely seen colour photographs from his time
spent in the US has been published by Mack, offering a glimpse into his time
developing his own voice as a photographer.
Born in
1941, the youngest son of British painter Raymond Ray-Jones, he studied
graphics and photography in London before moving to the US on a scholarship to
study at Yale in 1961.
In his
early 20s, the colour and chaos of New York provided Ray-Jones with the
material he needed to shape his vision and he did this alongside street
photographers Joel Meyerowitz and Garry Winogrand, with whom he used to prowl
5th Avenue with a 28mm lens on his camera.
At the
time colour photography was considered as vulgar and looked down on by the
establishment, but it suited their needs.
"I
found America a very colour-conscious country," Ray-Jones said.
"Colour is very much part of their culture, and they use it in crazy ways.
You look down Madison Avenue at lunchtime and the colours just vibrate."
In an
interview with Liz Jobey, Meyerowitz notes that part of the reason for using
colour was speed.
Without
a darkroom to develop their own black-and-white film, the use of colour meant
they could shoot and drop the film off at a laboratory that would turn around
the prints quickly.
"We
were two young novices and we didn't know any better and we only wanted to see
the work as fast as we could get our hot little hands on it," says
Meyerowitz.
"It's
a youthful tactic, like today's youth shoots digitally, so they can look at
them while they are on the street. It's a matter of speed."
Ray-Jones's
background as a graphic designer and time spent as an art director can be seen
in many of these frames from the US. Indeed his understanding of how
photography communicates echoes the thoughts of John Szarkowski, head of the
Department of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art.
"Photography
can be a mirror and reflect life as it is, but I also think that perhaps it is
possible to walk like Alice, through a looking-glass, and find another kind of
world with the camera," said Ray-Jones.
His
journey to develop his own style was fairly rapid and by the time he returned
to England in 1965, he was ready to embark on the project he is best remembered
for, the series of photographs that would be published posthumously as A Day
Off: An English Journal (1974).
And in
1969, alongside Enzo Ragazzini, Dorothy Bohm and Don McCullin his pictures were
shown at the ICA, it was the first time the institute had exhibited
photography.
By now
his pictures were far more complex, allowing various elements to come together
within the frame, giving the viewer a chance to let their eyes soak up the
scene.
These
are complex pictures as can be seen in the examples below. Though they work at
face value, it is the interaction of the figures and how they work the space
within the frame that is key to their appeal and social commentary.
The
exhibition at Media Space runs until 16 March 2014 and also includes Martin
Parr's early black-and-white work The Non-Conformists. The series was taken in
Hebden Bridge and the surrounding Calder Valley, and only previously exhibited
in the region itself and at Camerawork Gallery, London in 1981. Parr has always
sited Ray-Jones as a big influence on his work and you can see that in this
collection.
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