Colin Jones is a renowned British photographer, best known for his exclusive images of The Who in London during the Swinging Sixties. With a politically charged social eye, Jones has been described by the Sunday Times as “the George Orwell of British photography”. His range of musician portraits and documentary images are now in high demand, often auctioned at such reputable establishments as Sotheby’s and Christie’s.
Such dazzling success is a considerable step from his largely underprivileged childhood. Born in 1936 as the son of an East London printer, Colin Jones spent his youth struggling with dyslexia and illiteracy. He was evacuated three times during the Second World War, and thus attended 13 schools before the age of 16. Eventually, after several years of ballet lessons, Jones won a scholarship to the Royal Ballet School, and soon embarked on a career with its touring company.
His first professional encounters with photography occurred after meeting Michael Peto, a photographer for the Observer who regularly toured with the Ballet. Jones subsequently embarked on a six-month trial with the Observer, and so his photography career began. During the following years he focused on journalistic photography, often capturing scenes of depravity in the post-industrial North of England and delinquent Afro-Caribbean youth in London.
Jones is perhaps most famous for the photographs he took of The Who in the 1960s, capturing the decadent hedonism of Swinging London in a period of great social upheaval. Joining them on several tours, he was afforded a privileged view of the rock icons in their private domains as well as in the public eye.
Colin Jones has published several critically acclaimed books of his photography, and has been the subject of a series of one-man photography exhibitions.