Editorial Photography and Vacation

From Henri Cartier-Bresson, who documented French workers in 1936 as they enjoyed their first-ever paid holiday, his second wife and fellow humanist Martine Franck, and her 1976 depictions of her countrymen and women on summer vacation, through to any number of modern practitioners, photographers have long found interest in the leisure time of others.

But what was it about this subject that they found so fascinating? What can depictions of vacations reveal about people, places, or society as a whole?

Naturally, this subject immediately brings to mind Martin Parr, one of the most important photographers of our time and a prolific chronicler of leisure, whose seminal series ‘Last Resort’ captured between 1983 & 85 in the English seaside town of New Brighton (near where he was living at the time) includes some of the most iconic depictions of vacation that exist.

But Parr was not the first Englishman to document his compatriots on vacation. More than a decade earlier, Tony Ray-Jones captured the customs and eccentricities of the English in his now-acclaimed series, made between 1966-68.

After returning from five years in the US (where he studied under renowned Harper’s Bazaar Art Director Alexey Brodovitch and befriended Joel Meyerowitz, with whom he often photographed on the streets of NYC) Ray-Jones embarked on a mission to document his compatriots during their downtime. Imbued with irony, compassion, and humor, his images marked a significant departure from the raw, ‘objectivity’ popular with photojournalists at the time, and would go on to influence a generation of notable photographers, including Martin Parr.

More recently, rising Miami-based Greek photographer Niki Gleoudi has dedicated significant time to capturing candid images of people on vacation.

‘Beach Stories, ’ her ongoing series, explores how people of all ages and demographics, when freed from the constraints and pressures of daily life, can express themselves with complete freedom, engendering moments of humor, joy, and love, fundamental components of the human condition.

“People on the beach to me are usually closer to their true self, not attached to obligations, social musts, or taboos. They are able to let go, they are liberated and closer to any emotions they choose.” – Niki Gleoudi ⁠

Yet portrayals of vacations can also be more poetic, a means of immortalizing moments, capturing memories, conveying, through an image, the very essence of a particular time and place. 

This is unquestionably true for Joel Meyerowitz and his hugely influential 1979 series Cape Light. Over the course of two summers, he trained his 8×10 Deardoff vintage camera (loaded with color film) on Cape Cod, Massachusetts (a hugely popular destination for summer vacations at the time), capturing its ever-changing complexion with extraordinary artistry and thus displaying the incredible potential of chromaticity.

A truly remarkable and enduring body of work, it remains powerful to this day, inducing a sense of wanderlust, nostalgia, placidity, and even longing, sensitivities that, in many ways, encapsulate our memories of vacations.

“You look at it (a photograph) and all around the real world is humming, buzzing, and moving, and yet in this little frame there is stillness that looks like the world. That connection, that collision, that interfacing, is one of the most astonishing things we can experience.” – Joel Meyerowitz

The meaning of vacation is subjective, and thus, is expressed differently by each photographer. Of course, for many, the term evokes the golden sands of a sun-soaked beach, but for others, it is the labyrinthine streets of some unknown city; far-flung peaks, or perhaps, verdant countryside closer to home.

However, from the works of masters like Bresson or Meyerowitz to those of lesser-known contemporary practitioners, what unites all great depictions of the subject is their ability to capture the immense sense of freedom that a vacation can provide.

All images © their respective owners