Martin Parr was born on England. He is a distinguished photographer who has worked on many British documentaries. His fields of interest include looking at the social classes of England, and the differences in wealth between them. His most notable works involve rural communities, and to date he has made 40 photo-books. Parr has been quoted as saying that he wanted to be a photographer from the age of 14, and that his grandfather, himself an amateur photographer, first gave him an interest in photography as an art form. His grandfather inspired him to the point that when he finished secondary school, he went to Manchester Polytechnic to study photography. It was there that he met Daniel Meadows, who he collaborated with on several projects. In 1975 Parr moved to Yorkshire. It was there that he completed his first professional standard work. Whilst there, he became affiliated with the Albert street workshop in order to use their darkroom facilities.
Parr lived and worked in Yorkshire for five years, photographing rural life in the area. He produced a photo-book which would go on to be referred to as The non-Conformists, which was widely exhibited at the time and was then released and sold as a photo-book in 2013. Sean O'Hagan, a respected photography critic with The Guardian, said of his work: It's easy to forget how quietly observational Parr was as a black and white photographer", indicating the respect Parr was afforded in the Photography community.
In 1980, Parr married Susan Mitchell, and moved to the west coast of Ireland with her, where they lived for the next two years. He promptly set up a dark room in Boyle, County Roscommon, and quickly got to work on his next projects. His next project, Bad Weather, was published in 1982. Bad Weather was the first and last project Parr did in Ireland, as he left the country soon after its completion.
In 1982, the couple moved back to the United Kingdom, this time to Wallasey, and when they moved, Parr's photography took on a radical change. He switched from black and white photography to working in full colour. In 1984, two years after he moved there, he published Calderdale Photographs and later that same year he published A fair day: Photographs from the West Coast of Ireland. The reason he did this is that he started taking inspiration from famous American Colour photographers, such as Joel Meyerowitz, William Eggleston and Steven Shore, and from British Colour photographers, such as Peter Mitchell and Peter Fraser. Parr himself has also been quoted as saying that "I had also encountered the post cards of John Hinde when I worked at Butlins in the early 70's and the bright saturated colour of these had a big impact on me" Parr was a good photographer, but he didn't let that get to his head. He knew that it was wise to look at the work of other photographers and use their techniques to better his own work. He spent the summers of 1983, 1984, and 1985 photographing working class people on Brighton beach. This work went on to become the photo-book The Last Resort: Photographs of New Brighton, which was exhibited in London and Liverpool in 1986. It was released to substantial praise and critical success. Another respected photography critic, Gerry Badger, has said of The Last Resort:
"It is difficult from a perspective of almost a quarter of a century to underestimate the significance of The Last Resort either in British Photography or Parr's career. For both, it represented a drastic change in Photographic expression, from monochrome to colour, a fundamental technical change that heralded the development of a new tone in documentary photography."
Karen Wright, a photography critic with The Independent, is quoted as saying
"He was attacked by some critics for his scrutiny of the working classes, but looking at these works, one merely see's Parr's unflinching eye capturing the truth of a social class embracing leisure in whatever form available."
After five years in Wallasey, Parr moved to Bristol with his life, where they have remained to date. During 1987 and 1988, he worked on another project, this time focussing on the middle class instead. At the time, the middle class were becoming increasingly affluent under Thatcher's Government. He photographed middle-class activities such as dinner parties and shopping in the southern United Kingdom. It was distributed as The Cost of living and was shown in London, Paris, Oxford and Bath. In 1989, he released and distributed One Day Trip, a photo-book concerning people on a boat to France getting drunk.
Between 1987 and 1994, Parr did a lot of travelling for his next work, a critique of world tourism, which was published and released as Small World in 1995. In 2007,Small world was published again, revised, and with more photographs. The original was exhibited throughout 1995 and 1996 in Paris, London, Edinburgh and Palma in Spain, and has been shown in various locations throughout the world ever since. As well as making this Photo-book, Parr was the visiting professor of Photography at The University of Art and Design Helsinki from 1990-1992.
In 1988, Parr became an associate member of Magnum Photography. In 1994 he became a full member, despite strong opposition by Photographer Philip Jones Griffith, who pleaded with the other members against his appointment as a full member. Membership of Magnum helped him get into editorial Photography, and on editorial fashion Photography for many big name fashion designers including Louis Vuitton and Paul Smith.
In 1995, Parr started work on his next project, which he completed in 1999, called Common Sense. The focus of Common Sense was global consumerism. Released in 1999, it contained 158 images depicting consumer culture, intending to showcase how individuals entertain themselves. For this project, Parr used 35 MM ultra saturated film in order to bring out heightened colours.
Having myself looked at some of his work, I can see why he is as acclaimed as he is. For Example, in The Non-Conformists, his black and white Photography both captures normal, everyday life, and, in my opinion, it also highlights how life in the countryside is both similar to life in the big city, and yet at the same time how different it is from life there, showing people sitting down and relaxing in a park, something you might do in a big city, while a few feet away from them there is a herd of cows in a field, that kind of thing.
I also like his diversity as a photographer. For example, Bad Weather, the project Parr worked on after The Non-Conformists, was drastically different from his first photo-book. Whereas The Non-Conformists was about life in the countryside, focussing on the people who inhabit this region, Bad Weather was more about the title: the weather, and the way it affects people, for example it showed people walking down the street holding an umbrella, another shot showed a man standing isolated in a fog.
I also enjoyed the photography displayed in The Last Resort. In my opinion, It's bright colors do an excellent job of highlighting the fact that this is the only time of year that these people can escape the hard work involved in their everyday lives, and I feel that Parr made an excellent decision in switching from black and white to color photography.
In my opinion, the photo-book Cost of Living was not as good as his previous work. I didn't think that the subject matter, for example the bake-sales of the middle class, was not as compelling as the subject matter in his previous work.
I have a similar feeling about Small World. Again, I don't find that the subject matter is as interesting as his previous work.
