Only in England - now at the National Media Museum, Bradford

After its brilliantly successful run as the debut exhibition hosted at Media Space in the Science Museum, Only in England, Photographs by Tony Ray-Jones and Martin Parr, is now open at the National Media Museum in Bradford. Running from 28 March until 29 June 2014, it gives anyone who didn't manage to make it to London an opportunity to take in an exhibition that feels quintessentially English. The exhibition features 50 vintage prints as well as 50 previously unseen images from the Tony Ray-Jones archive, held by the National Media Museum. It was Martin Parr who helped to select these new prints from a selection of over 2,700 contact sheets and negatives. Martin Parr's works includes 50 rarely seen early black and white photographs from his series The Non-Conformists.

I enjoyed my morning moseying around the exhibition in London and while I did find it a little unwieldy to navigate, the photos were charming. My particular favourite, the image that made me smile and say 'Yep, only in England!' was Glyndebourne, 1967. All dressed up for the opera and having a champagne picnic with cows in the background? Of course it's Glyndebourne.

Opening times and visiting details are available on the National Media Museum's website. But the good news is that entry is free.

Oh, and if you'd like a little taster, we have an exlusive video of Martin Parr taking a look at some of Tony Ray-Jones' postcard collection!

Postcards: A Martin Parr video exclusive

Only in England, an exhibition of work by two of Britain's most respected documentary photographers, Tony Ray-Jones and Martin Parr, has been running at London's Media Space since September last year. As the exhibition draws closer to the end of its six month run, Media Space has released some exclusive video footage of Martin Parr exploring a file of Ray-Jones' collected seaside emphemera. It's a sweet insight into the interests of Ray-Jones, and Parr's excitement at unveiling a little more about him.

If you'd like to see Only in England, you've until 16 March to do so. Tickets cost £8, or £5 for concessions and can be booked online. Media Space is a part of the Science Museum.

Only in England will run at the National Media Museum, Bradford, from 28 March to 29 June 2014.

Photographs rendered in Play-Doh

I've normally walked out of a pub quiz with some nuggets of new-found information and I've occasionally left with the victor's prize, but I've never come away with a new hobby. Obviously I'm going to the wrong class of pub quiz, unlike Eleanor Macnair. When she attended a pub quiz hosted by Miniclick by MacDonaldStrand, one round asked the participants to recreate an iconic photograph using Play-Doh. Rather taken by the process, she started doing them at home for a bit of fun. It's grown a bit, with friends requesting specific recreations and a Tumblr dedicated to her work. Now anyone can see her version of August Sander's Pastrycook, Dovima with elephants, evening dress by Dior, Cirque d’Hiver by Richard Avedon reworked in Play-Doh by Eleanor Macnair, or her rendition of Helen Tamiris by Man Ray, whether they're in Yemen or Equador.

Each postcard sized plaque is nothing more than a fleeting creation, however, and Eleanor is not amassing an archive of flour-water-salt dough representations in her living room. She crafts them in under an hour using a pint-glass rolling-pin and a blunt knife from a globally recognised homeware megalith, and they last long enough to be photographed before being broken up and the different Play-Doh colours returned to their respective tubs, ready to be reformed into another image, another day.

Eleanor says that she cringes when she sees people on the Internet debating the value of her project. It is, after all, a bit of fun. But if she can lead lead people to discover new photographers or look again at well known photographs, she's happy. And 'Sometimes it's nice to have the freedom to do something just because.'

Quite frankly I think it should be every photographer's aim to have Eleanor recreate one of their images. They'd be in hallowed company.

You can check out all of Eleanor's Play-Doh photos on her Tumblr: Photographs rendered in Play-Doh.

Only in England: Photographs by Martin Parr and Tony Ray-Jones

The debut exhibition at London's Science Museum's Media Space also happens to be the first ever major London exhibition of work by British Photographer, Tony Ray-Jones, together with 50 rarely seen early black and white photographs, The Non-Conformists, by Martin Parr. In Ray-Jones and Parr, the exhibitions draws upon the work of two of the most incisive documentary photographers of British life. Before his untimely death from leukemia in 1972, Ray-Jones compiled an archive of work exploring English customs and identity. This in turn had a lasting influence on the work of other photographers, including Martin Parr.

The exhibition comprises 50 vintage prints as well as 50 previously unseen images from the Tony Ray-Jones archive, held by the National Media Museum. It was Martin Parr who helped to select these new prints, from a selection of over 2,700 contact sheets and negatives. As for Parr's work, it has only ever been exhibited in Hebden Bridge and at Camerawork Gallery, London in 1981.

Only in England: Photographs by Tony Ray-Jones and Martin Parr will run at Media Space, Science Museum from 21 September 2013 to 16 March 2014. The exhibition will then be on display at the National Media Museum from 22 March to 29 June 2014. Admission £8, Concessions £5.