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The Best in Show: Chris Boffey reviews 'Only in England', a retrospective of documentary photography by Tony Ray-Jones and Martin Parr

By Chris Boffey

October 16, 2013 | 6 min read

Media Space, the new gallery at the Science Museum in South Kensington, opened last month with ‘Only in England’, a retrospective of documentary photography by Tony Ray-Jones and Martin Parr. We sent Chris Boffey along to get his take on the UK’s foremost chroniclers of people living their ordinary lives.

The accessibility of the internet has turned everyone into a potential journalist. People can write what they want and unleash it on the public. There are very fine writers and reporters, especially in the world of politics and food, who have turned an interest into employment and are making a steady, if not great, living.The same cannot be said of photography. Most people now carry a camera with them at all times and are willing to take a snap at the drop of a hat, or especially a trouser, but how many great pictures have we seen taken by amateurs and how many of those with an interest in photography have gone on to make a living out of their hobby?Writing and photography have many common aspects; the most important is that the subject must be interesting. Even a badly written piece of writing can be good if the subject is either newsworthy or entertaining enough to paper over the poor grammar or use of language or it could simply get rewritten. However, if a photograph is grainy, unfocused, and out of frame, only in rare circumstances will it not be consigned by the delete button.This becomes immediately apparent in the first exhibition to be held at Media Space, the new photography and art gallery that opened at the Science Museum in London on 21 September.
Beauty contestants, Southport, Merseyside, 1967 by Tony Ray-Jones © National Media Museum Hannah Redler, head of Media Space, says: “It is estimated that more photographic images have been taken in the past 12 months than in the entire history of photography.” What wasn’t said was how many of them were worth looking at.The exhibition, which is well worth looking at, is a triptych, comprising of 60 prints from the archive of Tony Ray-Jones, a gifted photographer who died at the age of 30 in 1972 with the photographic world at his feet, alongside the early black-and-white work of Martin Parr, who drew on Ray-Jones for his inspiration. The third tranche is previously unseen pictures from the archive of Ray-Jones selected by Parr from contact sheets and negatives.If we take the technical brilliance of Ray-Jones and Parr for granted, what stands out is that these two men had the eye; the ability to snap the ordinary and make it interesting, alongside the nose for the quirky, the patience to stand and wait and the ability to get close enough to their subjects without them posing for the camera.These are not stunted photographs, set pieces from a news event or pretty rural landscapes, but slices of life as seen through the lens.
Blackpool, 1968 by Tony Ray-Jones © National Media Museum Ray-Jones spent five years in the USA before returning to Britain in 1966 to find out that nothing much had changed in the years that he had been away: the rich got richer and the poor got children.He was fascinated by the working class at play and trawled seaside towns, Blackpool, Southport, Ramsgate, Brighton, Broadstairs and others to collect his people. There is little glamour in Ray-Jones work. The photograph of beauty contestants at Southport on Merseyside in 1967 captures the seediness of the competition, the boredom of the contestants and the leering of a youth.His print of a Beachy Head Tripper boat is sublime in its composition. Amongst the holidaymakers is a young couple, alone together despite being surrounded by holidaymakers, oblivious to everything but each other and Ray-Jones captured the moment.He was fascinated by working class people on beaches and how they gathered together, grouped on the sand as they would have been at home, many wearing the same clothes on holiday as they wore during the rest of the year.
Mankinholes Methodist Chapel, Todmorden 1975 by Martin Parr © Martin Parr/ MagnumParr was led by Ray-Jones into documenting working class life after seeing his work whilst a student at Manchester Polytechnic. Parr, now 61, has a portfolio built up over the decades that Ray-Jones would surely have rivalled but for his early death from leukaemia.Parr moved on to use colour in his depiction of working class life on the front at New Brighton, Merseyside. They were heavily criticised at the time for their bleakness and the messages they sent out but he has always rejected that they were needlessly cruel. In a recent interview he said: “Most of the images we see of the world are some form of propaganda. We are so used to this now, so paralysed by it, that when you actually see real people they strike you as being strange and different.“You should ask yourself why we are so used to seeing glamourised pictures of what people think they should look like. Even the simple family album is an idealised form because you use it to sell an idea of your family as perfect. It is the same with Facebook, everyone is always happy. So when I take pictures of real life people say they look weird.”So Parr is not the man to take your wedding pictures.The prints exhibited in his part of the exhibition are of his early work when he moved to the small Yorkshire community of Hebden Bridge – at that time a mill town in decline. He was fascinated by the congregations of the small Presbyterian chapels dotted around the Calder Valley and a particular couple he got to know so well that it is obvious from the pictures that they forgot he was there. Parr recognised the character in their faces and the work ethic that showed in everything they did.
Eastbourne Carnival, 1967 by Tony Ray-Jones © National Media Museum Years ago I remember sitting in a Lancashire pub and a long-time married couple were close by. They sat side by side, the husband regularly getting up to buy their round of a pint and a half of bitter. They never spoke. After a couple of hours the wife pointed to the wall, looked at her husband and said: “Nice radiators”. He grunted in agreement. Ray-Jones and Parr would have captured that moment.For me the exhibition was a delight made better by a delicious moment of irony. While using my camera phone I was told: “No photographs”.Media Space at the Science Museum. Only in England: photographs by Tony Ray-Jones and Martin Parr until 16 March 2014This article was first published in The Drum's October 11 issue. You can buy a copy here.

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