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The magazine of the art-form of the photo-essay “A free, really high quality photo-essay magazine.  Fabulous!” Stephen Fry. British actor, writer and film & documentary maker
June 2015 back issue
Being English
by Patrick Ward
  record of the English at play from the 1960s to the present time.  No one is more surprised than me that these pictures are now some 40 years old. I’ve spent much of my life capturing fleeting moments, living intensely in the instant, the now, not concerned with the past or the future, but only with what is unfolding before me right now. Maybe not precisely the now because there’s always that sense of anticipation of what might just occur in the coming few seconds, minutes or hours, where that occasionally glimpsed and sometimes captured decisive moment lurks. If this all sounds a bit calculating I hope the images themselves suggest otherwise, because seizing the moment is only part of being a documentary photographer. Much of it must take place with the eye, and the heart, away from the viewfinder, when one is simply living and forming feelings and attitudes about one’s fellow man and woman, feelings and attitudes that will feed back into those moments that we will simply recognise, with the camera, as the truths we really care about.
But let me return to these photographs. I was in my thirties, surrounded by a generation of gifted photojournalists, all socially and politically committed and wanting to change and improve the world, and all people I admired and valued as friends. And yet, I found myself simply wanting to take pictures that would make people smile, wanted to bring my own sense of the human comedy into my photography. So I followed my instincts, which we all must do. Maybe I never grew up, because I’m still looking for those lighter moments.
These photographs were made in the 1970s and form part of my new book, Being English, a mostly affectionate
Biker practicing his yoga in Kensington Gardens, London.
Pearly King and Queen & family in East London.
Queen Charlotte’s Ball for debutantes in Mayfair, London.
Sunday morning whippet racing in Accrington, Lancashire.
Yorkshire Miners’ Gala.
Wensleydale Farmers’ Show in Yorkshire.
Eton Wall Game at Eton College, Berkshire.
Harness Horse Parade in Battersea Park, London.
Children’s adventure playground in East London.
Beautiful Baby Competition in Finchley, London.
Hobby Horse and dancers at Parliament Hill Fields, London.
After a Trooping the Colour rehearsal, St James’s Park, London.
Shooting for a portfolio on The Serpentine, Hyde Park, London.
Fancy Dress winner at a country show in the Cotswolds.
Flying Day at Old Warden aerodrome, Bedfordshire.
Miss Vacari’s dance class in Knightsbridge, London.
On the Golden Mile at Blackpool, Lancashire.
Salvation Army music at a care home in Accrington, Lancashire.
Drag artist at the Vauxhall Tavern in South London.
At an auction of stuffed animals in Clerkenwell, London.
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