- Artwork Details: 26.6 x 17.6cm
- Edition:
- Material description: Silver bromide print
- Credit line: © National Media Museum/Science and Society Picture Library
- Theme: Portrait
- Medium: Photograph
- Accession number: ACP 1085
Blackpool 1968
1968
Ray-Jones, Tony
Born in Wells, Somerset, Tony Ray-Jones initially trained as a printmaker at the London School of Printing. It was here that he first developed an interest in photography before gaining a scholarship in 1961 to study at Yale University. Upon graduating, and under the influence of the Russian born photographer, Alexey Brodovitch, Ray -Jones began to devote himself entirely to photography.
In 1966 Tony Ray -Jones returned home to Britain and, inspired by a Country Life book of old English customs, he took to the road in a camper van to capture the ordinary lives of people around him. He returned to the USA in 1971 to take up a teaching post in Los Angeles. Soon however, Ray-Jones fell ill and returned to England just three days before he died from leukaemia in March 1972.