British photographer
Jon Tonks (born 1981) is a British documentary photographer. He was awarded the Royal Photographic Society's Vic Odden Award in 2014 for his book "Empire".
Early life and education.
Tonks was born in Sutton Coldfield in the West Midlands. He studied design then worked as a local newspaper photographer. Later he earned an MA in Photojournalism &amp; Documentary Photography from London College of Communication.
Life and work.
Tonks' first book "Empire" (2014) is about four small far-flung territories that remain under British rule: Tristan da Cunha, Ascension Island, Saint Helena, and the Falkland Islands. Beginning in 2007, Tonks spent five years working on the project and travelled around 50,000 miles; he "spent a month in each territory, and over a month at sea getting to them". Sean O'Hagan, reviewing the book in "The Observer", wrote that "Tonk mixes portraiture and documentary to show how important post-colonial tradition is to the survival of these communities and how their adherence to a kind of old-fashioned Britishness can make them seem culturally as well as geographically isolated in our increasingly globalised world." An accompanying text mixes historical fact and anecdote.
References.
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