Exercise: Martin Parr
Read the document ‘Martin Parr: Photographic Works 1971–2000’ by the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television. Core resources: Parr.pdf – It is disappointing that the images in the PDF are in black and white as Parr is so well know for his saturated colour images.
Watch an audio slide show of Martin Parr talking about his progression from B&W to colour photography and The Last Resort: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJinAgBYaLs – Unfortunately this link doesn’t work due to copyright issues.
As the video link doesn’t work I have searched for places it is discussed. It seems that in the video Parr calls himself “A very big hypocrite” because the photograph he produces becomes a part of the thing he is preaching against, delightings in his own hypocrisy.
In this video Martin Parr acknowledges and defends what he calls the “hypocrisy and prejudice” in his work. What do you think about this statement? Write a short reflective commentary in your learning log. (Open College of the Arts, 2014:76).
Commentary:
Parrs work documents cultural peculiarities in society, he grew up in the post war years and saw many changes in consumerism and the class structure, including the emergence of the middle class. Suburbia is part of his upbringing, the dull sprawling mundane part of suburbia which fascinates him. It was suggested that his time living away from suburbia at Hebden Bridge was an attempt to find community that he’d been missing in suburbia; it is possible that this contrast opened his eyes to the surreal which is often not seen because of familiarity to things.
He says that when photographing Brighton he knew that he was exposing the hypocrisy of Thatcher’s Britain, “I like to create fiction out of reality” by taking societies natural prejudice and twisting it (Martin Parr: Objects of their affection, 2011). Parr is honest about his intentions. His priority is to make images that are entertaining and relate to peoples lives, but he does look for the surreal; humour is important.
Parr says that “to a certain extent all photography is exploitation” (Potter (2018). The Last resort (1985)was heavily criticised as being exploitive of working classes, and he says he was feeling rather guilty as he was flourishing as a photographer in Thatcher’ Britain which he disapproved of, and wanted to be fair to all classes. He hadn’t photographed the middle classes so he began a new project The Cost of Living (1985), and has followed this with projects on travel and parking spaces for instance; Parr is capturing and documenting the times we live in.
In everything that I’ve read of seen of him he does acknowledge the hypocrisy in his work, but I don’t think prejudice so much so; I think Parr believes himself now to be reasonably objective, merely showing us what he sees but in a colourful humorous way.
I have researched Martin Parr several times before but most recently in part one of this course, I also visited an exhibition of his work at that time : https://nkssite5.photo.blog/2020/05/03/research-and-reflection-photograper-talks/
My learning:
- “It is the subjectivity rather than the subject matter that is important in photography”.
- His suggestion that the challenge of photographing locally, rather than strangers is good.
References:
Open College of the Arts (2014) Photography 2: Documentary-Fact and Fiction (Course Manual). Barnsley: Open College of the Arts.
Potter (2018) ‘Martin Parr interview (The World According To Parr, 2003)’ At: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCRyB2SFQZ4&feature=youtu.be (Accessed 25/10/2020).
Martin Parr: Objects of their affection (2011) In: The Independent 11/05/2011 At: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/martin-parr-objects-of-their-affection-2281960.html (Accessed 25/10/2020).
Photography 2: Documentary 