Description

This image, taken one Sunday morning in Whitby, Yorkshire, has become synonymous with English country life. Ian Berry took the picture as part of a wider project in the 1970s to document the culture and traditions of the country during a transitional time.

The great single picture is emotionally satisfying, whereas getting a good journalistic story is more about being a professional

Ian Berry
© Ian Berry | Magnum Photos

Ian Berry was born in Lancashire, England. He made his reputation in South Africa, where he worked for the Daily Mail and later for Drum magazine. He was the only photographer to document the massacre at Sharpeville in 1960, and his photographs were used in the trial to prove the victims’ innocence.

Henri Cartier-Bresson invited Ian Berry to join Magnum in 1962 when he was based in Paris. He moved to London in 1964 to become the first contract photographer for the Observer Magazine. Since then assignments have taken him around the world: he has documented Russia’s invasion of Czechoslovakia; conflicts in Israel, Ireland, Vietnam and the Congo; famine in Ethiopia; apartheid in South Africa, the political and social transformation in China and the former USSR.

© Ian Berry | Magnum Photos

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