One of his best books in my opinion is entitled ‘A Day Off’ : An English Journal’. Published by Thames & Hudson in 1974, its is a work that is very much an anthropological collection and very much the style of Ray-Jones. His images are a beautiful documentation on British society. They show the English, their quirks and their idiosyncrasies with a touch of humour and nostalgia.
Born Holroyd Anthony Ray-Jones in Wells, Somerset, he was the youngest son of Raymond Ray-Jones (1886–1942), a painter who died when Tony was only eight months old, and Effie Irene Pearce, who was a physiotherapist. After his father’s death, Tony’s mother took the family to live in Kent, and then to Hampstead in London.
He studied at the London School of Printing, where he concentrated on graphic design. In the early 1960s he obtained a scholarship that enabled him to join Yale University School of Art on the strength of photographs he had taken in north Africa from a taxi window. So at the age of 19 he arrived at Yale! His talent was obvious, and in 1963 he was given assignments for various American magazines.
Eager to use photography for more creative purposes, he secured work n the Manhattan studio of Richard Avedon. Here Ray-Jones got to know a number of New York “street photographers”, such as Joel Meyerowitz, a fellow student at the time. Ray-Jones graduated from Yale in 1964 and photographed the United States energetically until his departure for Britain in late 1965. From then until 1970, he lived and worked at 102 Gloucester Place, Marylebone; this is now marked by a memorial plaque.
On his return to Britain, he was shocked at the lack of interest in non-commercial photography, let alone in the publication of books presenting it. He was also unsure of what subject he might pursue, but the idea of a survey of the English at leisure gradually took shape. He began work on that, at the same time doing portrait and other work for the Radio Times, Sunday newspapers, and magazines.
In the October 1968 issue of Creative Camera magazine, he described what he was trying to achieve:
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.
Sadly there is no foundation supporting his portfolio, but some of his work can be viewed here.