Martin Parr

Martin Parr is a British documentary photographer and photojournalist. He is famous for his photographic projects that focus on photographing the social classes of Britain. Parr’s photography has an intimate, critical and anthropological nature on modern life. Parr has been a member of the Magnum photos group since 1994.

I think Parr’s work is a true reflection of the un-photographed perhaps ‘ugly’ side of society. He explores the unpleasingly aesthetics of daily life that we sometimes intentionally forget. The bright colours could possibly be a representation of our enthusiastic attitude to an imperfect world. Parr documents with a passion to uncover the concealed, photographing at unpredicted angles of imaginative concepts with the real people of the modern world. I like his style of photography because the subject does not have to be beautiful, he finds a way of bringing out the beauty in the images. His style creates unusual, critical and vibrant images that tell a story in each one.

Joel Meyerowitz is an American street, landscape and portrait photographer. He is considered one of the greats of street photography, and a pioneer of colour in photography as a serious form of art. After discovering photography at the age of 24 in 1962, he is still actively photographing 53 years later, at the age of 77.

Meyerowitz was born on March 6th 1938 in New York City. He began photographing seriously in 1962 after becoming inspired by witnessing photographer Robert Frank at work, and after some consideration he quit his job as an art director at an advertising agency to become a full time photographer, taking to the streets as a black-and-white street photographer.

Over the next 10 years although enjoying some success, Meyerowitz had little critical-acclaim for his work. He experimented in both black-and-white and colour, but by 1972, he decided to photograph exclusively in colour, a medium that was not highly respected nor acknowledged in the art world at the time. Meyerowitz’s first book Cape White however shot him to worldwide acclaim as a photographer, was one of the first photography books of colour photographs to be given serious worldwide recognition.

Unlike Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank who are also viewed as greats of street photography, Meyerowitz is very different in his approach. His style more so reflects the work of another renowned photographer, William Klein; producing lively photographs full of suspense, drama and action in a direct close-up manner, separate  from the distant, observed style of Frank and Cartier-Bresson. Meyerowitz likes to photograph his subject whilst they are engaged in a particular movement or action, with his images telling a story. Meyerowitz believes that it is important for his photographs to tell a story about the humanity on the street. His photographs focus heavily on human interaction, usually two or more people engaging in a physical game, communication or moment. He photographs in colour, which is rare for a street photographer to do as street photography is traditionally viewed as a more appropriate in black-and-white. His style has drawn both praise as well as criticism, viewed by some critics as a cheap mockery of the work of some iconic street photographer. Meyerowitz use of colour relates greatly to his willingness to change and push the boundaries of photography, and criticism does not affect him greatly.

Since the initial success of Cape Light, Meyerowitz has since produced over 20 books, including ‘A Summers Day’ (1985) and ‘Bystander: A History of Street Photography’ (1994). As well as photographing, Meyerowitz also gives lectures on a regular basis around the world. His working methods were subject of a 1981 documentary presented by Robert Gilgberg.

September 11th: In the aftermath of the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks, Meyerowitz was granted unlimited access to photograph the ruins of ground zero, recording the immediate effects of the event and also the 9 month project to repair it. His work was made into a series entitled Aftermath: World Trade Centre Archive.

I find Joel’s work to be very interesting because of the way that he greatly immerses himself in his subject matter. His dedication to street photography is impressive and inspiring

Here is the 1981 documentary of Joel Meyerowitz. Gilgberg follows him working on the streets of New York, as well as talking to him more formally in his studio. Although an old documentary, I nevertheless found this to be very insightful and interesting.

This is Joel’s official blog. He has a list of all his past and current work. I would recommend it as a good read.

www.joelmeyerowitz.com

Tableau photography is a form of narrative documentation which involves the photographer creating a story through a series of carefully staged images that are decided beforehand. Tableau photographers usually create a series of images that link together, progress and expand a particular theme or story.

Tableau has a diverse meaning and is not limited entirely to photography. Any form of conceptual art which is deliberately planned beforehand can be considered as tableau, and many photographers involved with tableau will venture into other forms of art to express the story they are trying to tell. Although tableau is a documentation of a particular theme or idea, it cannot truly be considered documentary because the work produced is based on interpretation, whereas documentary photography is all about the photographer observing the world.

Re-creating old photos is a fun and popular way that has been and still is  used as a form of tableau photography.

Tableau is often used by photographers and conceptual artist as a crossover with documentary  photography. It is very hard to create a story based solely on tableau because staging every image can take away the raw meaning of what the photographer is trying to show. A lot of photo-books which include tableau therefore will either use tableau to strengthen the meaning of their documentation, or documentary photography to help convey the narrative expressed through a tableau piece.

Tablaeu  very often allows for the exploration of surrealist viewpoints

The advantage of tableau photography is that the photographer has complete control over the how the photograph is created. This is very helpful if the photographer wants to produce surrealist styled images because it allows for the manipulation of events which would not otherwise be realistically possible. Tableau photography is often used by photographers who want to explore personal themes, such as family, because it is easier to stage photographers from an insider perspective, and there is a more subjective viewpoint, which makes the staging of images more appropriate.

Photographer Phillip Toledano explored elements of tableau in his photo-book series ‘Days With my Father’, documenting his elderly father’s battle with dementia.

This brief interview explores to work of tableau photographer Jeff Wall. He talks of his preparation for his upcoming exhibition, and expresses some of his views regarding his own work and ideas.

Nick Waplington – Living Room

“What is remarkable about the photographs is the special way in which they make the intimate something public”

Nick Waplington born in 1965 is a artist and photographer who is based in New York.  He studied art at West Sussex College of Art & Design in Worthing, then Trent Polytechic in Nottingham and at the Royal College of Art in London.  He has many publications his first one being ‘Living Room’ .In the late 1980’s England was under the Conservative government for now 10 years there was a collapse in the industry and a rise in poverty and unemployment. Photographer Nick Waplington decided to spend 4 year photographing  the everyday life of middle class families in a council estate in Nottingham rather that photographing contemporary photography. He photographed family’s intimate moments in their living room by capturing physical and emotional dysfunctionality of everyday families.

Phillip Toledano

‘When I was six’ is a book  produced by Phillip Toledano based on the remembrance of his sister who died when he was six years old. The project is a work of memories, sadness and silence based on a profound absence of a family member. The book combines words and images, photographs that are new, old and found. Lots of the photographs are of items found in a box from the attic his mother hid away but still cherished, which he discovered after her death. Little momentoes that belonged to his sister such as; a lock of her hair, a fan letter written in crayon and a personalised pencil. All of these items create a narrative of remembrance, each photograph has an intense personal meaning attached to it. Toledano photographs them in an almost forensic way, as if it were evidence that she was alive. He is included photographs of planets and space travel, this is symbolic of his feelings regarding the absence of his beloved sister. Toledano wanted to represent a vast and empty world which his life became, possibly an untouchable and distant world much like death. 

I think Toledano’s ‘When I was six’ project has been influential when researching family themed photographers, he takes a different approach compared to other photographer and experiments with a difficult topic to photograph. I found the idea of memory inspiring as you are able to photograph memories that represent the individual that you no longer have. 

Another project of Toledano’s is ‘Days with my father’, a simple journal of intimate photographs of his father after his mother died in 2006. The images taken were of his father in his final years, focusing on their relationship and the importance of family. There were funny, sad and loving observations, an honest and emotional documenting of excepting and coming to terms with an aging parent.  ‘I like photographs to be unfinished sentences’- Phillip Toledano. 

Julian Germain

Julian Germain’s body of work ‘For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness’, is a detailed, honest and earnest portrayal of an old man’s life. Germain photographed Charles Snelling in the early nineties,  photographing this elderly man was the not the main premise to begin with, the companionship was the primary reason. Despite this Germain still managed to fill two third’s of a book with the images she produced. The other third Germain used scrapbook albums, the design of the pages reflected a true representation of the actual albums for example yellow pages and dog-eared covers. The scrapbook allows an insight into Snelling’s life before Germain began photographing him, his beloved wife Betty who died was the central figure. The authenticity of the book is one outsiders are not able to capture. The snapshots have a cinematic feel to the image and through using scrapbook images a sense of time shifting is brought to the project.

Photojournalism is a particular form of journalism (the collecting, editing, and presenting of news material for publication or broadcast) that employs images in order to tell a news story. They’re still images that tell a story usually to exploit news to across the world. Photographing news for an assignment is one of the most ethical problems photographers face Photojournalists have a moral responsibility to decide what pictures to take, what picture to stage, and what pictures to show the public. The public is attracted to gruesome photographs and dramatic stories. A lot of controversy arises when deciding which photographs are too violent to show the public, but ultimately it gets their attention.

There are 3 types of photojournalism:

Timeliness – The images have meaning in the context of a recently published record of events.

Objectivity – The situation implied by the images is a fair and accurate representation of the events they depict in both content and tone.

Narrative – The images combine with other news elements to make facts relatable to the viewer or reader on a cultural level.

Examples of Photojournalism:

Martin Parr is a British documentary photographer. He has had around 40 solo photobooks published, and has featured in around 80 exhibitions worldwide.

“He is known for his photographic projects that take an intimate, satirical and anthropological look at aspects of modern life, in particular documenting the social classes of England, and more broadly the wealth of the Western world.”

His work caught my eye as some of the photos he has taken are a similar kind of style to what I would like to do with my project. Although this is not the focus of his photography, some of his photos show places where people have gathered for some reason, which interests me a lot.

Some of the photos show places where the people are all there for their own separate needs. For example, the Diamond Hill Cemetery, as shown above, and the Ferry below. These people are here by themselves, but they are all their for similar reasons.

Then there are places where something has been organised, so people are purposely all gathered in that place for the same thing.

This is the kind of thing I would like to explore within my work, places people accidentally gather, and places people purposely gather for specific purposes and events.

“Martin goes to Benidorm and explores further what is possible with the telephoto lens.”

“Over the summers of 2013 and 2014, Martin explored life on the Amalfi Coast, Italy.”