Martin Parr is a British documentary photographer and photojournalist. 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. 

Parr has said of his photography: 'The fundamental thing I'm exploring constantly is the difference between the mythology of the place and the reality of it.  ...Remember I make serious photographs disguised as entertainment. That's part of my mantra. I make the pictures acceptable in order to find the audience but deep down there is actually a lot going on that's not sharply written in your face. If you want to read it you can read it.'

Parr's aesthetic is close-up, through use of a macro lens, and employing saturated colour, a result of either the type of film and/or use of a ring flash. This allows him to put his subjects "under the microscope" in their own environment, giving them space to expose their lives and values in ways that often involve inadvertent humour. His technique, as seen in his book Signs of the Times: A Portrait of the Nation's Tastes (1992), has been said to leave viewers with ambiguous emotional reactions, unsure whether to laugh or cry. At first glance, his photographs seem exaggerated or even grotesque. The motifs he chooses are strange, the colours are garish and the perspectives are unusual. Parr’s term for the overwhelming power of published images is “propaganda”. He counters this propaganda with his own chosen weapons: criticism, seduction and humour. As a result, his photographs are original and entertaining, accessible and understandable. But at the same time they show us in a penetrating way how we live, how we present ourselves to others, and what we value.

Images by Martin Parr

What are codes?

Codes are a system of words, letters, figures, or symbols used to represent others, especially for the purposes of secrecy.

A code can be seen as a symbol or some form of object which portrays a message. Codes within photography are also known as symbolic codes, technical codes or written codes.

What is secrecy?

Secrecy is the action of hiding something secret  from individuals or certain groups who do not need to know.  Secrecy is keeping something secret or the state of being kept secret.

Secrecy also has direct connotations with identity and how people will try to keep their identity hidden.Secrecy photography often results in surrealistic images which help to represent the sense of a hidden or secret identity.

What is Meshes of the Afternoon?

Meshes of the Afternoon is one of the most influential works in American experimental cinema. A non-narrative work which has been identified as a key example of the “trance film,” in which a protagonist appears in a dreamlike state, and where the camera conveys his or her subjective focus.

This slow movie was Made by Deren with her husband, cinematographer Alexander Hammid, Meshes of the Afternoon established the independent experimental movement in film in the US.This short film inspired early works by Kenneth Anger, Stan Brakhage, and other major experimental filmmakers.

Shot by Hammid, a leading documentary filmmaker and cameraman in Europe, the film makes new and surprising use of such standard cinematic devices such as montage editing and matte shots.

Who is Rut Blees?

Born 1967, Rut Blees Luxemburg is a German photographer who mainly focuses on night photography exploring the urban landscape, and is currently a tutor at the Royal College of Art. Rut Blees is an Urban Aesthetics and a Senior Researcher focusing on the transformation of the Battersea South Campus. Blees’s work concerns how the city is represented and the phenomenons of the urban world, to do this she combines large-scale photographic work using public art installations and operatic mise-en-scene.  Blees uses long exposure to allow the use of light that emanates from office blocks and street lights within her photos, with many of the photos printed dealing with nocturne themes.

Some of her recent projects included Silver Forest (2016) which shoot based on the western facade of the Westminster City Hall, and London Dust (2011-13) which was a series of photographs and a film that time-lapsed the rapid architectural transformation of London City, this led to the production for the iconic cover of The Streets Original Pirate Material.

 Some examples of her work can be seen below:Fototagetrier

Once creating a contact sheet I decided to analyse one of her images to see what made them so effective.

Technical: Within the image the floors of the car park spaces are used as a border to highlight the actual focus of the image, the slightly dim ground floor. This is done through the use of contrast between the sides of the building and the floor itself which uses yellow tinted lights to emphasis certain aspects of the concrete around it, with the grays and blacks in the picture they stop the yellows from overpowering the entire image creating an aesthetically pleasing photograph as a result.

Visual: Visually the images colours compliment each other, balancing each other so that the piece is not too over powering to look at. The piece is also taken looking down to the floor from a high view-point whilst being taken at an angle, by doing this it creates a spiraling impression inside the image from how more it’s revealed or concealed the further into the image you look.  Due to this composition and use of soft yellow lights it replaces any chance of it becoming eye sore that would usually be linked to concrete buildings such as car parks.

Conceptual: The image taken is meant to explore the aesthetics within an urban environment not usually seen without a closer and more observant look. It also explore the use of lights to emphasize or dull certain parts of a photograph to create a focus point which is not too overpowering as a result.

X-RAY IDEA

The work of Maha Malluh that I previously looked into sparked an idea as it reminded me of the x-ray luggage scans that take place in airport security. Here are some of those scans that I am referring to.

This has given me the idea to photograph individual objects and then use Photoshop to compile and overlay them in order to create images with a similar aesthetic to a mix of the X-rays and of Malluh’s work. However this will require me to find alternative objects which aren’t obvious in order to give the pieces individuality and visual interest within each piece itself. This will be a response to development in technology and the everyday objects that are found around us, and how this development is causing a loss of security and privacy (which will be symbolised by the security X-ray aesthetic as it something that breaks the line of privacy.)

What is it?

Meshes of the Afternoon was made in 1943, originally a short experimental film directed by Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid, it consists of a circular narrative with several motifs: A flower on a long driveway, a key falling, a door unlocked, a knife in a loaf of bread, a mysterious Grim Reaper, a phone off the hook and an ocean. The movie at the time introduced new creative editing, distinct camera angles and slow motion which previously had not been seen.The plot consists of someone walking back home, to which as soon as she falls asleep experiences dreams in which she repeatedly tries to chase a mysterious figure with a mirrored face. Each time she fails but resumes trying to catch the figure, and each time sees multiple instances of herself which are parts of the dream previously seen. Once woken up by a man she realizes that the events which occurred in her dream actually happened, the man later returns to see a smashed mirror on the wet floor with the woman now dead. The film originally was made by Deren’s and Hammid’s desire to create an avant garde personal film that dealt with the effects of psychological problems such as the French surrealists films of the 1920s like Salvador Dali. All actors in the film were played by Deren and Hammid.