File under: Trails and Influences:
Other Pathways. Case #16/52.
Back mostly in the 19th century John Benjamin Stone made a photographic record of the folk customs and traditions of Britain, alongside documenting wider sections of people on these shores and cultures across the world.
The people, times and places in his photographs seem as though they belong to somewhere now impossibly distant from our own times; the physiognomy of those portrayed, their stances, their very being have gained layers of difference and otherlyness as the years have gone by.
His work is well worth a wander, an explore and a gander… it can also be seen as a precursor to journeys through the English ritual year and across these lands by the likes of Homer Sykes, Tony Ray-Jones (something of a favourite around these parts: see Day #19/365) and Sarah Hannant (see Day #66/365)… and as I mentioned back not too long ago on Day #127/365, it felt like seeing a glimpse backwards and forwards to his photographs in part of Robin Redbreast (Day #127/365).
See more of his work here and here. Have a peruse of Record Of England, a book co-published by Dewi Lewis Publishing here.
