Great Guns’ Frankie Caradonna: Remarkable things you didn’t know about life by “The George Orwell of British Photography”

Colin Jones is a fascinating subject for a documentary. He is a complex man, a ballet dancer turned photojournalist who has been called The George Orwell of British Photography by The Sunday Times.

Great Guns director, Frankie Caradonna, had wonderful elements to work with, but that doesn’t minimise the power of his own input. Caradonna has woven into Jones’ 11-minute story, The End of Photography, Jones’ views on censorship, journalism, and capturing post-war Britain as well as his photographs which tell their own story about humanity and inhumanity, life in the real world and life in the arts world.

Caradonna grew up as a fan of Jones’ work, from his perspectives on British colonialism in The Black House to the poetic exploration of dancers and coal miners in Grafters, and eventually met the photojournalist in person while at the lab of photographic printer, Robin Bell. Having always been inspired by the way in which he framed the world in front of him, Caradonna decided to tell the story of Jones’ life.

The ballet dancer turned photographer transitioned from performing alongside Rudolph Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn at the Royal Ballet to working for The Observer magazine and travelled the world as a photojournalist. He captured iconic portraits of The Who, Pete Townsend, and Mick Jagger at the start of their careers, photographed ground-breaking stories such as the Alabama Race Riots, the Brazilian Gold Mines, the boy soldiers of Khmer Rouge, and the Cargo Cults of the New Hebrides who worshipped Prince Phillip.

Frankie’s documentary short not only pays tribute to Jones’ photographs, but offers a glimpse of his less known, but still incredibly relevant, work. Revealing snippets of Jones speaking in his studio allow the film’s audience to hear his views on subjects, from censorship and the role of the journalist to moments of his career such as a harrowing experience in the Philippines, that changed his entire perspective on life.

Caradonna commented, “It was a particular season in my life when I met Colin Jones for the first time, but things often happen for a reason. At the time, I was interrogating the meaning of the art of photography – especially on the status of photojournalism. I was also working on a long-term personal project about depression and mental health, using Robin Bell’s photography lab – where I bumped into Colin. I thought I knew his work before I met him in person. I was wrong.”

According to Caradonna, The End of Photography has become the pilot for a longer documentary on the life and work of Colin Jones.