James Ravilious

James Ravilious was born August 1939 in Eastbourne, England . He moved to Devon in the 1970’s where he took up photography inspired by Henri Cartier-Bresson. They both predominantly focused on candid photography and Ravilious shows the daily tasks in a rural village.
In Ravilious’ most well known work he turns his camera on a small farming community, a developed story occurs in every photo. For example, the photos here are examples of the typical day in Devon during the 1970’s and was inspired by the work of the French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson. Ravilious uses candid photography to depict what the reality of daily life was like. As a member of the community,Ravilious was not simply an outsider, it is as if the photos were a perspective of his routines.

This gives the photos more intimacy with a variety of meanings and depth. In that time James took over 80,000 black and white images of all aspects of local life including farming and housing interiors. From these photos, you can see various shots of candid photography. At this time, only a small percentage of people took photos of the british countryside. He shows a real honesty of the time period. Ravilious shows the positives and negative times, I believe he did this effectively. In 1997 he was given Honorary Membership of the Royal Photographic Society.