Richard billingham essay

Some of Richard’s own words: “My father Raymond is a chronic alcoholic. but she does smoke a lot. She likes pets and things that are decorative. They married in 1970 and I was born soon after. but now he is back with Ray and Liz again. Recently he became a father.

His work has mostly concerned his family, the place he grew up in the West Midlands, but also landscapes elsewhere. Billingham is best known for the photography book Ray's A Laugh (1996), which documents the life of his alcoholic father Ray, and obese, heavily tattooed mother, Liz.

Billingham wrote and directed his first feature film, Ray & Liz, in 2018. It is a memoir of his childhood and his parents, told in three separate time frames. He now lives on the Gower Peninsular in South Wales.

He has made several short films, including Fishtank (1998) and Ray (2016). Billingham adapted the latter into his first feature film, Ray & Liz (2018), a memoir of his childhood. He won the 1997 Citibank Private Bank Photography Prize (now Deutsche Börse Photography Prize) and was shortlisted for the 2001 Turner Prize.