Only in England

Tony Ray-Jones (1941-1972) was an English photographer, or rather, "a social anthropologist with a camera". He photographed English rituals of Eton boarding school, beauty contests, pop festivals, the street, and the seaside (via).

Intrigued by the eccentricities of English social customs, Tony Ray-Jones spent the latter half of the 1960s travelling across England, photographing what he saw as a disappearing way of life.
Science Media Museum

"My aim is to communicate something of the spirit and the mentality of the English, their habits and their way of life, the ironies that exist in the way they do things, partly through their traditions and partly through the nature of their environment and their mentality. For me there is something very special about the English 'way of life' and I wish to record it from my particular point of view before it becomes Americanised and disappears."
Tony Ray-Jones




"In his photographs, the recent English past does indeed seem like another country, but one that, for all the strangeness he captures, remains oddly familiar."
Martin Parr




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