John is best known as a pioneer of colour photography in photojournalism during the 1960s.
He was brought up in Herefordshire where he became a passionate photographer and when he went to study engineering at Cambridge he continued to take photographs. After Cambridge, he worked as a photographer on the Daily Express and also started shooting stories for Town Magazine, a new innovative fashion magazine profiling photographers such as Terrace Donovan, David Bailey and Don McCullin.
John shared the cover of the first colour supplement issue of the Sunday Times with David Bailey – a picture of a footballer surrounded by images of Jean Shrimptons’ armpit! As a result, John was contracted to shoot sixty pages a year and travelled to nearly 100 countries.
In the early 70s, John moved sideways into making documentary films. He filmed a programme on the life of Van Gogh and he also when on to direct many films on travel and the untouched tribes in the most inaccessible parts of the world.
John has received many awards for his creative work and has exhibited widely including at The Gallery of Modern Art in New York, the Photographer’s Gallery, London and at the National Museum of Photography in Bradford.
John returned to Herefordshire to catalogue his vast collection of still photographs. He is a regular visitor to the College and particularly supports the BA (Hons) Photography students on a number of projects.
