Martin Parr is a catcher of pearls in a sea of everyday life

The hardest thing to photograph is the everyday, catching things in it that we tend to overlook or even ignore, searching for the typical or the unusual, the surprising or the new, using language that everyone can relate to, regardless of nationality. Martin Parr, British photographer and star of the world photography, takes seemingly simple and everyday pictures which become a vivid metaphor, a generalization, a story about a phenomenon or a problem. Parr seeks and struggles in his works against the “propaganda of the everyday,” against the “as is usual,” the “as it should be,” the expected and the obvious, bringing them to the surface, often sharply or even vulgarly, forcing the viewer to look at what for him has been an invisible cultural background since his childhood. It is available for communication and democratic. His work is filled with humor, irony, self-irony and grotesque.

Martin Parr /Magnum Photos/agency.photographerGB. England. Weymouth. Playing bowls on a bowling green. 1998.

United Kingdom. England. Weymouth. Playing balls on the grass. 1998

Modern British photographer and photojournalist. He was born in Epsom, Surrey, England, on May 23rd, 1952. His father was an amateur photographer, which is probably why Martin dreamed of taking documentary photographs from the age of 14.

From 1970 to 1973, Parr studied photography at Manchester Polytechnic University, now known as the Metropolitan.

From the mid-1970s he began a career as a professional photographer and also taught photography.

He married Susan Mitchell in 1980 and had a daughter, Ellen, in 1986.

Martin Parr started out as a black and white photographer, making several successful projects including Bad Weather 1982 and A Fair Day 1984 , but in 1984 he switched to color film. Two years later his book Last Resort: Photographs of New Brighton was published.

Martin Parr has been a member of the Magnum Photos agency since 1994, and since 2008 he has been an Honorary Doctor of Arts at the Metropolitan University.

In 2004, Parr was the curator of the photography program at the Arles Photo Festival. In 2007 he shot the Paul Smith fall-winter 2007/2008 ad campaign and later the Louis Vuitton ad in 2008.

He published almost 50 photo books and participated in about 80 exhibitions worldwide.

A documentary photographer of everyday life, Martin Parr is also known as a collector of photographic prints and a fanatical collector of books and photo albums, postcards with images of trivial things, interiors and places. He filled several floors of a building he’s shooting in London with them. Parr published this collection in several albums and showed it at exhibitions.

Since 1997, Parr has directed, produced and shot for British TV and in 2006 he directed and produced It’s Nice Up North, a low-budget feature.

Spring 2012. an exhibition of Martin Para’s photographs is on display at the Multimedia Art Museum New York as part of the ninth Month of Photography “Photobiennale 2012.

The hardest thing to photograph is the everyday, catching things in it that we tend to overlook or even ignore looking for the typical or the unusual, the surprising or the new, in language that anyone can understand, regardless of their nationality. Martin Parr, Englishman and star of the world photography, takes seemingly simple domestic subjects that thanks to him become a vivid metaphor, a generalization, a story about a phenomenon or a problem. Parr seeks out and struggles in his work with the “propaganda of the everyday,” with the “as is usual,” the “as it should be,” the expected and the obvious, bringing them to the surface, often sharply or even vulgarly, forcing the viewer to look at what has been an invisible cultural background for them since their childhood. It’s socially accessible and democratic. His work is filled with humor, irony, self-irony, and grotesque. Martin began his career as a photographer in the mid ’70s, in the mid ’80s he switched to “color” as opposed to the black and white photography prevalent in European photojournalism. And still in a constant search for a new vision and a new visual language, he remains a topical, expressive, paradoxical, and highly sought-after master, who keenly feels the current trends and in many ways sets them.

– Martin, you are a photographer, curator, collector, film maker and father. How do you fit all that into your life??

– laughs I get up very early and work very intensely. I’m obsessed with my work.

– I didn’t miss anything?

– Seemingly not: curator, editor, photographer… Father – I’ve never heard that on the list before! But why not??

– What is your favorite paragraph??

– Photography is, of course, my favorite thing.

– More important than family?

– It’s not a fair question!

(Both laugh

– You don’t have to answer..

– No, no, I’m happy to answer, it’s just not fair. Of course, family is the most important thing! And after that, I’m a photographer.

– Your family wonders what you do?

– Yes, but the family has little choice: so much of my life. My wife and partner very rarely travels anywhere with me. Sometimes, but rarely. She doesn’t like to fly, she doesn’t want to be “Mrs. Martin Parr” and just attend. So she chooses very carefully where she goes, she accompanies me to very big events, everything else she skips.

– Your child is into photography?

– No. I have a daughter, she’s a chef, and she doesn’t take pictures.

– Let’s switch to photography. What amuses and irritates you about it??

– There’s really very little that annoys me. I have the privileged position of travelling and taking photographs all over the world, I get paid for it and I stand on a platform that I’ve been working on for years. There’s nothing about photography that upsets me, in fact I feel fantastically lucky to be able to share my work with others.

– A large part of your work are projects. You work on commission, by assignment?

– Yes, it’s true, at the moment I work more on cultural projects than on magazines. I’m invited to make a series or maybe a book about a place and then to present it, the book, in that place. I first go there for two or three weeks to work, and then I come back for a presentation. I have my own projects and ideas that I gradually put together, and eventually they turn into books, exhibitions and other projects too. These two tendencies live in parallel, but sometimes they overlap. I always have a lot of projects in the works at the same time, for example, in 2012 planned to issue five of my books. Constantly having to watch and take apart shoots, communicate with the designer, curators, organizers – it’s a real job. I even have an office in London and two and a half employees to help me.

– Most of your projects are based on your ideas?

Martin Parr Magnum Photos/agency.photographer

HUNGARY. Budapest. Szechenyi thermal baths 1997

Hungary. Budapest. Széchenyi Baths 1997

– In fact, most of the time it’s a mix of my ideas and the client’s. For example, when I was invited to Atlanta, no one told me what to photograph, so it was my ideas. The client helped me produce the work, organized access. Sometimes I have my own ideas, the client has hers, we discuss them, then we build a tight schedule, because I prefer to work in a high-pressure regime. I usually shoot from 8 in the morning until midnight every day, to make the most of the situation.

– One project or several at a time?

– I always have several projects in the works. But I can’t shoot more than one project at any one time. But I need to fill the gaps in my schedule, I already have 7 or 8 projects planned for next year, some are small and short, others are long. I have a very complicated life, I am very presumptuous in terms of what I think I can fit into it. Laughs.

– You supervise your own projects?

– I edit and curate my own work, and most of my own projects, but I also often work with an editor with whom I share the experience, and I almost always work with a team that necessarily has a designer and editor.

– You like other people’s photos as much as you like your own?

– Of course they do! I enjoy other people’s work, and that has led me to curatorial work, because it annoys me when serious young photographers don’t have the opportunity to realize their projects.

– You work with other people’s archives?

– I usually don’t look at other people’s archives, but try to find new photographers and exhibit or publish them. It’s almost always a coherent work already, I sometimes help with selections, but I try not to get into other people’s archives.

– How do you balance being a photographer and being a curator??

– The job of a photographer is basic, curating and selecting is something I sometimes do early in the morning, well there are also specialized trips. I just got back from China, part of the time I was shooting, part of the time I was working on my book about China, meeting with photographers, curators, going to bookstores and merchants, working with my partner in Beijing.

– New people, new finds?

– Yes, always!

– You are looking for new photographic names in America?

– I’m always looking for new work and new names, no matter where they come from. In that sense, America is no different from any other country.

– You are on a mission on this trip?

– There’s a commercial assignment, more lectures and seminars. It’s a chance for me to see what’s going on here, to look at new albums, books… I’m always looking for something new.

– Judging by the Magnum archives, your first photos in America were taken in ’92..

– I don’t remember the exact dates, but yes, it seems to be true..

– You came to America several times after that, in the mid- and late ’90s, early 2000s..

– You know my travels better than I do! Laughs.

– I just went through your archive on the Magnum website. Do you think America has changed??

– Of course, America has become richer, the sign of riches is traffic jams. And you’re the kings of traffic and congestion!

– What about Tokyo, and the record for the longest traffic jam?

– No, Tokyo is nothing compared to New York, maybe there was the longest traffic jam, but in Tokyo the traffic is never a problem, but in New York it’s just a disaster!

– What hasn’t changed?

– America is still America, thank God! More about the changes. Food, good food is very expensive, but when I first came here, I think it was way before the 90s, the food was bad, just awful, almost inedible..

– Some people miss that food..

– I’ve seen it, I understand that nostalgia for communist times is inevitable, but I have no longing for that food, and I’m not surprised that McDonald’s in New York was so successful when it first opened in the early 90s.

– Do you plan projects related to America??

– Not yet, nothing concrete, but I’d like to do a big exhibition here. America is a very vibrant photographic market, full of enthusiasm, I’m really looking forward to what happens in Houston at an all-American “Photofest. America is one of the key countries in the world of photography, a place to be watched very closely right now, a place where serious exhibitions are very good to be shown.

– Can you name your favorite American photographers??

– I’ve seen a lot of them, I have a whole shelf in my collection devoted to American photographers, everyone from Rodchenko to contemporary artists, but I’m sorry, I have a hard time with American names.

– Let’s change the subject and talk about the digital era. You’re still shooting on film?

– No, I haven’t shot film in three or four years.

– In 2007, you said that Flickr* would become a threat to agencies like Getty Images, and now Flickr and Getty are one and the same thing**. What it’s like to be a prophet?

– A prophet?!

– You predicted that social photohosting sites like Flickr would seriously compete with the big agencies on the market.

– I don’t really remember saying that, I’m not a prophet at all, but it makes perfect sense that once you build a collection of photos, you sell it.

– And what’s next?

– Digital photography is going to grow, it’s fantastically democratic. In the time I’ve been photographing, the photography audience and the number of photographers has grown to unimaginable proportions. Now, in the Internet era, everyone has an easier and cheaper distribution mechanism. I’m very happy to spread the photography and in no way consider it a threat to myself or to the photography itself. I’m very happy that this is happening, my main audience now can be other photographers, and that’s the most loyal audience. Of course, I don’t want to be ghettoized, and I want to have the widest possible audience, but I know that photographers are very attentive and devoted to other photographers.

– Do you use social photography sites to distribute your photos?

– No, but the Magnum website magnumphotos.com is available to everyone, and there are 25,000 of my photos, and if anyone wants to see a lot of Martin Parr photos, they have that option. Also, I have a group on Flickr called Martin Parr WE Love U //flickr.com/groups/martinparr .

– So Flickr is not a threat to photography?

– Absolutely not! Flickr is one of the most interesting platforms that photographers have.

– Many photographers are afraid of the mass influx of people into photography..

– Yes, a lot of people are scared, but I’m only happy about this influx. I think it’s silly to be afraid, because the most interesting and important thing about photography is its constant growth and democratization.

– What do you think about mainstream samizdat, how do you feel about services like blurb.com***?

– Great, that’s just great! One of the aspects of American photography which prevents it from developing the way photography is developing in the rest of the world is that American photographers don’t do enough publishing and promotion of their work they haven’t yet realized how effective and interesting new ways of distribution can be. But I hope the situation will improve soon.

– Do you publish your own projects?

– No, but only because I’m very lucky: I have no shortage of publishers. But there are exceptions, for example, last year a friend and I did one book on blurb, and it was the right decision.

– Services like blurb.com, will replace the book industry?

– No, they will complete it. In blurb.com publishes over a million books a year, it’s just phenomenal! And don’t forget that we need bad books to understand the good ones better. So all this competition and proliferation is good for photography, because only in comparison with the bad can we appreciate the good.

– There are very new markets at the moment: apps for tablets and other mobile devices. You are moving in that direction?

– There are several offers, both to Magnum and to me, to make apps, and I don’t have a problem with that. But I still think that the book works as a physical object. I know that in the last ten years there has been a flowering of interest in the book, in publishing, in collecting. Apps will never replace the book, but they will complement this market.

– Newspaper and magazine editorial budgets have fallen dramatically over the past few years. Did it reflect in any way on your work?

– Of course, I work much less for magazines now. But the idea of publishing my own projects and, as I said, cultural projects has replaced magazines. It’s a lot more fun than doing a photo assignment: you have more freedom and time, you get to work more seriously, you get paid more. Instead of a few spreads in a magazine, you can count on the book as a product of your work. In fact, it’s only good news. Everything that others paint in black, I think is good news and progress.

– Two last questions: Have you made any mistakes in your career that you would like to talk about or warn people about??

– laughs I don’t know about mistakes!

– Advice for aspiring photographers or the first advice you give to your students?

– Work hard and love what you do. Be honest with yourself. The problem is that most students don’t work at all, they don’t know what it is to work. The problem is that the profession of photography looks like a very spectacular and colorful career. People think it’s easy: Pick up a camera and go shoot. But you can’t really hide in photography how much labor the work cost, or rather, you can’t hide how little labor was put into the project. It’s always a sight to see. Photography is interesting because it is both the easiest thing to do and at the same time the most difficult.

Martin Parr. From the series The Last Resort: Photographs of New Brighton. 1983-1985.

Courtesy of Martin Parr Magnum Photos

Martin Parr. From the “Last Refuge” series. Photographs of New Brighton.”. 1983-1985.

(C Martin Parr Magnum Photo

s

Photos from the series “The Last Refuge. Photos of New Brighton” provided by Multimedia Art Museum New York . Martin Parr’s exhibition of photographs is part of the ninth month of photography, Photobiennale 2012.

Thanks also to Photographer Agency for providing the photos.

NOTES:

* Flickr is a service designed for the storage and further use by the user of digital photos and videos. One of the most popular sites for bloggers to post photos. As of August 4, 2011, the service had over 6 billion. uploaded images. Flickr was acquired by Yahoo! in March 2005.

Wikipedia, /.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flickr

** In 2008 Flickr and Getty Images announced their intention to work more closely together on photography. GI representatives said that they would be happy to use those Flickr collections, which they would find most suitable standards of famous stock. GI editors have been sifting through users’ collections for the best stock images, contacting contributors and offering to sell their images on GI. Within two years, the GI collection included more than 100,000 images. Today any Flickr user can already offer his photos for sale by selecting Request to License.

*** American website blurb.com specializes in publishing author’s books of any format and content in small print runs starting from one copy . The site also makes it possible to put the book up for sale.