Roger Watson on Anthony Jones
Anthony Jones is one of the few remaining photographers who still
looks for the beauty in everyday objects and places, who looks
for the abstract in the concrete and captures images that have
the flavour of urban life. In an age of digital, he still holds
steady the tiller of silver based photography and the elegant
beauty of images created with a critical eye looking for the innate
beauty and design in everyday life.
It's not fashionable but it is classical
and though bigger, brighter and more colourful images are in vogue
now, like the fads of the past they will seem old before their
time and the classic modernist work of Anthony will still seem
relevant, significant and beautiful.
Working in black and white with a medium
format camera, Anthony walks the streets of his native London
looking for momentary juxtaposition of disparate objects creating
a pattern that only black and white can reproduce. His image of
a London taxi in front of the Bank of England holds both the motion
and constant change of urban life and the solidity of tradition
and steadfastness. His work has the flavour of Paul Strand's images
of New York in the 1930s and of Bill Brandt's London work a decade
later. Anthony's work comes from a long tradition of the lone
photographer, walking the streets with his eyes open to the moment
when balance occurs and an image can be made.
His work does not speak of today or
yesterday or tomorrow. Instead they speak of the abstract patterns
created by the momentary conjunction of objects and places in
the modern metropolis. His images are quiet reflections in the
midst of a noisy city. His images both define and belie the facts
of modern urban life.
Roger Watson is the curator of the
Fox Talbot Museum, Lacock Abbey, Wiltshire, UK.
This comment was first published
on the blog of the George Eastman House Museum in September 2011.
The best place to keep up-to-date with Anthony Jones
is on his FACEBOOK
page or by joining his mailing list by sending a empty email to
mail@ajphoto.info
