Photographer Martin Parr: style features and examples of work

2024 Author: Sierra Becker | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-26 03:35

Photography is taking more and more space in modern culture. Now almost every person can afford to buy inexpensive equipment and, by posting work on various Internet platforms, share their vision of the world with other people. Billions of images pass through the lenses of millions of cameras. And only a few of them, the most valuable, remain in history. Photographers, along with artists, have preserved the realities of our life for centuries. Many of them are captured in a rather sarcastic manner by contemporary British photographer Martin Parr.

Biography in Brief

Martin was born in 1952 in Epsom, UK. At the age of 14, he realized that he wanted to connect his life with photography, which was facilitated by the personality of his father. At the age of 18, Martin entered the Manchester Polytechnic University, where he studied for 3 years. Two years later he began teaching. At the same time, she acts as a professional photographer.

In 1980, Martin Parr marries Susan Mitchell. After 6 years they have a daughterEllen. Even then, he stood out among his colleagues in the case because he felt the benefits of a color image earlier than the others. At the same time, his first independent projects were brought to life, the first serious works were being created. In 1994, Martin joined the Magnum Photos agency. Since 1997, he has been trying himself in other creative fields, such as camera work and directing. Dozens of exhibitions and projects later, in 2008, Martin received a doctorate in arts from the university where he studied.

Creative activity

Despite the fact that Martin Parr began to engage in professional photography in the mid-1970s, world fame came to him only in 1986. The publication of his first photobook, The Last Resort, was a bombshell, with mixed reviews. Some artists highly appreciated the work, while others singled out overly caustic satirical notes, seeing in it only anger and contempt for others. By the time the book was published, Martin had already worked for Magnum Photos for two years. At the moment, the collection of the photographer in this agency has 25 thousand works.

In the late 1990s, Martin began to act as a director and cameraman - he oversaw several small television projects on British television. 2006 also saw the release of his low-budget film It is Nice up North. Since 2004, he has been actively cooperating with world-famous companies and firms. So, in 2007-2008, Martin Parr created advertising campaigns forPaul Smith and Louis Vuitton In 2012, an exhibition of his work was held in Russia as part of the Photobiennale 2012 project. At the moment, the photographer has a huge experience behind him: the footage was enough for 50 published photo books, and the number of exhibitions in which he took part reaches 80.

Characteristic style features

Most of Martin Parr's work is grotesque, sarcastic and somewhat acrimonious. The reason for this is that Parr, unlike many photographers of our time, seeks to capture the unsightly and ugly side of life. He is able to see something special in the everyday, everyday, gray and boring, and then express this something special in photography. How and what exactly Parr pulls out of reality may even offend someone.

Of course, not everyone wants to look at unpleasant things, especially if you notice yourself or the surrounding reality in them. However, as the photographer himself assures, rarely anyone takes offense at him. Being a "true Brit", he says that his nation not only satirically ridicules the environment, but also notices the hypocrisy and ugliness within itself. Most likely, the self-irony from which Martin looks at himself and his work puts him somewhat above other caustic representatives of photography.

All of Martin Parr's satire is certainly provocative, but at the same time British restrained. The author likes to ridicule the phenomenon of replication associated with the era of mass society. Mindless consumption, copyingthe facelessness of modern man and bourgeois society as a whole are precisely the topics that Parr prefers to raise in his writings.

Most Notable Works

For almost half a century of his career, the British photographer took so many pictures that they were enough for fifty different photo books. And this despite the fact that only 1-2% of all photographs taken are not sent to the scrap.

Martin Parr's most famous photographs are part of his first work, The Last Resort, which made the author world-famous. It displayed a seemingly familiar beach holiday. It is, however, it is served under the sauce of the phenomenon of mass character, facelessness, causing the viewer to feel disgust.

Parr often in his photographs condemns the phenomenon of stamping, moments in which nothing even comes close to being original. Like, for example, photo shoots of tourists near the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

The photographer also has such works that may simply seem strange at first glance, but at the same time bright. Like the picture of chess players in thermal waters in Budapest.

General conclusion

Martin Parr is currently one of the most famous British photographers. Almost 50 years of career have been embodied in dozens of projects and exhibitions, tens of thousands of photographs. This author is distinguished by a purely British view of the world. He is a little cynical, cruel, but also very reserved, extremely sarcastic andaimed at ridiculing those vices and weaknesses, negative aspects that prevail in modern society. Parr, in his works, for the most part, opposes the stereotyped and stereotyped thinking, against the faceless consumer society and mass society.