Street Photography

Tony Ray Jones

Tony Ray Jones is a well known documentary and street photographer who created photographs in Britain which are usually ironic or humorous.

Tony Ray Jones started a new generation of Street Photography and Documentary Photography that changed future photography by influencing artists such as Martin Parr.

Tony Ray Jones seems to show a lot of different characters in his photographs as you can see the comparison of people in the three images above. I feel that this is the intention of imagery as there is no main person usually and the photograph is focusing on everything, which in my opinion makes the image more of a still frame of reality. 

I think that the three photographs created by Tony Ray Jones are all of a similar contrast due to his use of high contrast 35mm black and white film, making his photographs have a lot of contrast making them quite striking due to the black and white tones being so defined and sharp, this makes the images look more interesting and makes the features of his images stand out.  The image above is from Tony Ray Jones' work 'Only In England' and I think is to portray English Culture through these people on a beach in Brighton. The image portrays quirkiness and personalities of the people on this English beach. The image doesn't have one main feature and is focusing on 'people' and their behaviours in social.
The image is almost humerus just because of the elderly people and their mannerisms and I think Tony Ray Jones wanted to show just how interesting England can be and therefore portrays his concept 'Only In England'.
The image has a busy feel about it and I think this is because of the people who take up the majority of the photo and because of the textures such as the pebbles on the floor and the peoples clothing and belongings, this means there is a lot going on in the image and therefore it makes it more eye catching and interesting.

After exploring the work of Tony Ray Jones, I have realized how taking photos of a group of people can be just as effective and interesting as taking a photograph of one person or main feature and I will be considering this whilst creating my 'Street Photography' prints. I would also like to take inspiration from Tony Ray Jones' work by trying to capture peoples facial expressions to make my prints more effective like the work of 'Only In England'.