Christmas cracker

Tony Ray-Jones's tips on how to be a good photographer

I have been meaning to write about a pre-Christmas visit I made to the best photography exhibition I have seen in a long time.

'Only in England' displayed the work of Martin Parr and the late Tony Ray-Jones and it was the first exhibition to be held in the Science Museum's new Media Space.

I wrote about the pair's work on this site on September 22 after The Guardian featured the exhibition in its pages. So there is no need to repeat those thoughts.

But it is worth explaining what made this show so special.

First, there was Ray-Jones' wonderful eye for detail and his ability to tell several stories in one complex image. One shot immediately comes to mind of an outdoor cafe at Windsor Horse Show in 1967. The eye is immediately drawn to a man, legs bent, about to sit down at a table alongside a slightly shifty-looking gentleman wearing a trilby and sunglasses and sporting a jacket and tie. Meanwhile a dappled grey pony walks between them and the counter, followed two yards behind by a little Jack Russell terrier. The lady behind the counter carries on brewing tea as if the scene before her is the most 'normal' imaginable.


The exhibition is filled with Ray-Jones' brilliance, but alongside it is the fascinating early work of Parr. He is a photographer famous for his colour-rich shots of Britons at their quirkiest, but these are black and white images in his 'Non-Conformists' series.

Parr's photos were taken at Methodist and Baptist churches in the Hebden Bridge area of Yorkshire and although there are occasional hints of the humorous style he was later to develop, these pictures have an intensity about them and sometimes a melancholy. The worshippers pray in earnest amid acres of empty pews. There is a timeless quality, but also the feeling that an era may be coming to an end.

Another aspect of the exhibition that delighted me was the Ray-Jones ephemera dotted around the room in glass cases. Excerpts from his notebooks were not only a joy to read, but revealed so much of the man - detailed notes on how to approach his subjects suggested a nervousness contrasting with the seemingly self-assured Ray-Jones who famously once introduced himself to an editor with the words: "Your magazine's shit".

One final plus point of the exhibition was the Media Space itself. It is a huge space and allows for temporary rooms within rooms. It is exciting to have such a wonderful new asset for photography.

• Only in England continues at the Science Museum until March 16, 2014. It will then transfer to the National Media Museum, Bradford, West Yorkshire for the period March 22 to June 29, 2014.