There’s a headline you don’t see too often at the moment in the UK , despite the greyness and uncertainty of our collective future’s I bring long overdue news of a Tony Ray Jones publication , this most welcome tome will be with us before Christmas and will coincide with the Ray-Jones exhibition at Parr Foundation , no doubt !
RRB photobooks are publishing a Ray-Jones retrospective later this year, details on the website, which is a bit strange as I have just taken delivery of issue 52 of Creative Camera , October 1968 after many years of searching. These two publications will have 52 years between them !
Creative Camera 1968 , Tony Ray-Jones
This issue contains some of the captures Ray Jones made in the United States before returning to England. A piece by Frank Charlton is as fascinating and as well observed as the pictures these words describe . The Magazine aims to juxtapose the American work with what have become the cornerstones of modern British Street & Documentary Photography.. This US work influenced how he saw and shot England , his time in America would eventually effect how we all interpreted our country, photographically .
He imported a new way of seeing , in my view !
Charlton writes “In England he finds a cooler human climate , a more subtle play in the remains of a disintegrating empire - yet significance in the relationship of details which at first seem disparate.”
Imagine seeing these captures for the first time back in 1968 , what a privilege !
I am delighted to possess this artifact of British photographic history , the print quality is sublime .
Until next time , keep it real !
Chicago, USA
PS. I bought a photo book recently that had been discounted due to scribbles on the title page , I knew that scribble, it was the autograph of one of Englands finest ?