Jane Bown (portraits)

Jane Bown is a British photographer who worked for the Observer since 1949. Her portraits of famous people have received critical acclaim.

She was born in Dorset and first worked as a chart corrector, which included a role in plotting the D-Day invasion. She studied photography at Guilford College under Ifor Thomas. She started as a child portrait photographer, but got a break in 1949 when she was asked by an Observer picture editor to photograph Bertrand Russell.

Bown works primarily in black and white using available light and a forty year old camera. She has photographed hundreds of subjects including Orson Wells, Woody Allen, Cilla Black, John Lennon, John Peel, Jarvis Cocker, Bjork, Diana Dors, Henri Cartier Bresson, Brassai and she took the Queens eightieth birthday portrait!

Bowns photo journalism includes Greenham common, Butlins, Glastonbury. She has a social documentary book called 'Unknown Bown 1947-1967' which I will look into purchasing.

I find Bown's work to be more attractive than some of the other photographers I have read about. She is British and still working and producing work which I find very exciting. Her subjects are people who I recognise and I like the style of some of the images I've seen ie the Orson Wells portrait has a chariscurio quality to it, a style which I am interested in.