Alan Bennett narrates ‘James Ravilious; A World In Photographs’ a film about one of the great unknowns of British Photography.  James Ravilious (1939-1999), son of the renowned water-colourist and engraver Eric Ravilious, dedicated his art to a small area of North Devon, where over a period of two decades he took more than 80,000 photographs.  This collection has become one of the most comprehensive and poignant archives in the country, documenting an English world and way of life most people had thought long gone. 

The film returns to key characters photographed by Ravilious, unfolding different aspects of the man and offering a nostalgia-free reflection on how their lives have changed since he began taking pictures in the early 1970’s.

James Ravilious
Twenty-six years prior to his death, in 1999, James Ravilious was commissioned by the Beaford Arts Centre in North Devon to photograph and document the people, events and landscapes of the surrounding area.  James was a self-taught photographer who worked predominantly with a 35mm leica camera.  His inventiveness of character led him to modify his equipment in order to facilitate further his pursuit for the perfect picture.  Every Ravilious photograph is printed in full with his recognisable black line around the edge reminding us there is no cropping, we see it as he saw it; unobtrusive and intimate, fleeting and spontaneous, considered and composed.  Ravilious does that rare thing of whilst working with the ordinary providing us with the extraordinary.

Alan Bennett on the photographer
"James Ravilious has made his record of rural life out of love, the whole enterprise done on a shoestring and it's perhaps this and his obviously sympathetic and retiring presence that has gained him entry and acceptance into the homes of his subjects. They have trusted him and let him see them as they are: they have not spruced themselves up for the lens or done a quick run round with the Hoover. Nobody tidies up; nobody clears the pots; nobody is on their best behaviour, Ravilious knowing instinctively that when people are on their best behaviour they are not always at their best."