Bill Jay


William 'Bill' Jay was a photographer, writer on and advocate of photography, curator, magazine and picture editor, lecturer, public speaker and mentor. He was the first editor of "the immensely influential magazine" Creative Camera ; and founder and editor of Album. He is the author of more than 20 books on the history and criticism of photography, and roughly 400 essays, lectures and articles. His own photographs have been widely published, including a solo exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. He is known for his portrait photographs of photographers.

Life and work

Jay was born in Maidenhead, England, attended grammar school and completed two years at Berkshire College of Art.
Jay was editor of the hobbyist Camera Owner which he transformed into "the immensely influential magazine" Creative Camera ; and founder and editor of Album, for all twelve issues. To supplement working on Creative Camera, for short periods he was European manager of Globe Photos, an international picture agency, and picture editor of The Daily Telegraph Magazine. He was the first Director of Photography at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, in 1970 and founded and directed the Photo Study Centre there.
He joined the Royal Photographic Society in February 1972 and was visiting speaker and arranger of talks at the Society, as well as for local camera clubs and polytechnics throughout the UK.
In 1972 he moved to the United States to enrol at the University of New Mexico under Beaumont Newhall and Van Deren Coke. He graduated with an MA on the Victorian landscape photographer Francis Bedford. Afterward, he founded the Photographic Studies program at Arizona State University, where he was professor of art history and taught photography history and criticism for 25 years.
He gave hundreds of lectures on photography as a guest at colleges, universities, art schools and camera clubs in Britain, Europe and the United States.
Jay was twice married and divorced, and had three daughters, Juliet, Louise and Hannah. He retired in the late 1990s, leaving Mesa, Arizona, for Ocean Beach near San Diego, then to Sámara on the Nicoya peninsula, Costa Rica, in 2008. He died in 2009, aged 68. His archive is held at the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona.

Publications