Martin Parr is a British photographer best known for his unique style of documentary photographs. As well as being one of the most successful and widely acclaim photographers of his generation, he is also one of the most controversial. I have recently watch a documentary of his life entitled: ‘The World According to Martin Parrr’. I found this documentary useful because I gave a in-depth insight into Parr’s experiences an influences, explaining how this has affected his unique and distinctive photographic style, based on “finding the extraordinary within the ordinary”.
Introduction
“this man is stalking me; he is waiting for my phone to ring, he’s obsessed ….. so far he has taken over 10,000 images of them, all over the world”
This is the opening quote of the documentary ‘The World According to Martin Parr”. Martin Parr is considered one of the most unique photographers of his generation. His style is very unique and interesting. Unlike many photographs to seek to photograph something exciting which has never been done before, Parr will photograph things which have already been photographed millions of times – ordinary, everyday objects, such as mobile phones, everyday foods and other consumer items.
This opening of this documentary implies that Martin Parr thrives of the normal, a view which is epitomised through the quote: “the more mundane the image, the more it excites him” and later through Parr’s exertion himself that “we are surrounded by things which are surreal, we just don’t see it”. Throuh such statements it is clear even to a viewer who ha sno prior knowledgeable of Martin Parr, that he is someone who has been able to capture the essence of the mundane, a photographer who has been greatly succesful for interpreting the ordinary in a way which is interesting, exciting and most importantly, thought provoking.
Parr’s Early Life
Parr was born 23 May 1952 in Aston, Surrey. Parr has described his upbringing as “completely bland …..content but at the same time momentous and boring” where “nothing really happened”. He claims that this upbringing fuelled his desire to take photographs, because it allowed him the opportunity to get out into his community and meet with all sorts of people, as Val Williams explains: “Martin would have reason to be there, because he was the photographer”. It also allowed him the chance to use his imagination and express himself creatively. Although he had a very conventional and essentially unexciting upbringing, Parr does not criticise or hold his upbringing in bitterness: “blandness of suburbia was an essential part of my upbringing – it made me the person and photographer that I am today”.
One early experience which has greatly impacted the style of Parr’s work is his experiences of bird-watching. As a child he would accompanying his fanatical bird-watching father on a weekly basis. Rather than developing an interest with bird watching himself, he focused his interests on the followers of this hobby, studying with a keen eye, the absurd nature and behavioural patterns of those involved in bird watching. Parr found their behaviour and enthusiasm for what many would consider to be monotonous, un-fulfilling and boring to be fascinating in itself. It made him realise that even the most ordinary of things, could be perceived and therefore expressed in an interesting way. Parr himself, later became a train spotter, a hobby he cites as an experience which has fuelled to a great level, his “fascination with obsession”.
Hebdum Bridge Project, Yorkshire – 1974-78
In the 1970s Martin Parr, along with 3 other fellow photographers, moved to a small village community, Hebdum Bridge, in Yorskshire. As a child Parr had always been interested in the north of England, often visiting his Grandparents in Yorkshire. Parr was drawn to the north because he admired the their sense of community, where everyone knew and depended on each other, in stark contrast to his experiences of separatism and hostility growing up in suburban Surrey.
Over the course of 4 years, Parr totally “immersed himself in every aspect of life”, getting to know the people who lived there very well and photographing them lots. As Parr became more deeply involved in the Hebdum community, so did his understanding and appreciation of the traditions of northern life. Rather than exploiting the community as outdated or plain, Parr instead set himself the challenge of celebrating and creating an essentially positive view of the quirky traits of Yorkshire life, documenting how traditional attitudes and values of the community gave it a sense of charm. His work during this period was also meant to be somewhat sad and reflective, a documentation of disappearing working class life.
This project, with its quaint and quirky images full of energy and life, very much extended Parr’s fascination with celebrating the beauty in simple things – the excitement in the ordinary.
Work in the 1980s
In the 1980s, Parr documented how Thatcher’s policies were changing Britain. Parr sought to challenge the impression Thatcher had presented herself, that she was changing Britain for the better, sacrifices for the good of communities. In protest to this view Parr went into small seaside communities of the north of England. The images he produced during this time were in many cases shocking and grotesque, showing people in the north to be in horrible conditions and suffering greatly. Rather than photographing the closing down of factories and the effects of northern cities, Parr work during this period was more subtle and poetic, photographing how one of the most romanticised British cultural areas, the seaside, had changed in this period, a metaphorical look into the degradation of Britain in this period.
His series ‘The Last Resort’, made up exclusively of these sea-side images, is a classic example of Parr being able to challenge and poke fun at ideas and preconceptions. Parr himself is not afraid to admit he exploits people in his work, claiming that “all photography is exploitation”. This series is a good example of Parr’s take on documentary photography, because his images both realistic, but at the same time somewhat surreal and animated, highlighting his ability to both be objective in what he produces whilst also adding his own colourful and imaginative twist on his images. This style makes his work descent, because he documents what he sees in his own way – he controls how the audience sees something, but not what they see; therefore manipulated but truthful at the same time.
1990s – Present: Consumerism and Advertising
This aspect of Parr’s work and style is what has attracted me most, because it is extremely revevant to the focus of my work, looking at the language of advertising. Referring to ‘Common Sense’ in the documentary, Parr mentions how his intention of photographing was to challenge advertising techniques by the very act of copying and embracing them: “I am using the language of advertising; I am using these bright, saturated colours to slightly subvert it”. It is a direct statement which highlights what Parr sets out to do in his style of photographing close-up with flash, to show detail to the event where it goes beyond the benefit of being well detailed. This style is clever because he is exploited what he wants to expose, in many ways hypocritical and a contradiction of his intent. Parr in ‘Small-World’: 1987-1994 , extends upon his study of British lifestyle and consumerism, exploring how these issues affect other cultures – a challenge in all of mass tourism and global advertising, looking at the broader picture in terms of how consumerism has affected all cultures around the world.
From ‘Common Sense’
From ‘Small-World’
Conclusion
This was a very interesting and fascinating documentary. I learned that Martin Parr is a photographer who seizes the opportunity to exploit the way something is perceived in an ironic manner, through the language and style of advertising. Parr was someone who had a very plain and bland upbringing and so used these personal experiences, emphasis blandness as a key part of his identity and thus affecting what he photographs, in the case of ordinary everyday products. Parr is a clever photographer who has benefited from the way society expanded and changed in the 1980s Britain, he look at the decline and society and the effects this had on the working class, to produce work which had both elements of truth, as well as elements of fantasy.