Martin Parr

Alex AdelineKate Fiona

BIOGRAPHY• BORN IN 23 MAY, 1952• DOCUMENTARY

PHOTOGRAPHER• PHOTOJOURNALIST• PHOTOBOOK COLLECT

LIFE STORY

• Influenced by his grandfather, George Parr, an amateur photographer• Studied photography at Manchester Polytechnic• Worked on photographic projects• Gained reputation by his innovation photography• 2004-2012: a photography professor at The University of Wales• Has published over 80 books of his own work

STYLE | “FIND THE EXTRAORDINARY IN THE ORDINARY”

• Renowned for street photography• Depicting the mundane as meaningful, beautiful or vulgar• Captures the world in a satirical, direct and cynical manner• Has experimented with 35mm black and white film, medium-format colour film,

35mm colour film with a Macro lens and (currently) with DSLR

“Part of the role of photography is to exaggerate”

• Much of his work features super-saturated colours to highlight the vulgarity of the everyday

“WITH PHOTOGRAPHY, I LIKE TO CREATE FICTION OUT OF REALITY. I TRY AND DO THIS BY TAKING SOCIETY'S NATURAL PREJUDICE AND GIVING THIS A TWIST.”

URUGUAY. PANTA DEL ESTE. READING AND SUNBATHING ON THE BEACH. 2006

Denotation• Man, woman, magazine, beach, sunbathing

Connotation• Marriage, attention, ideal woman

Studium• Propaganda, ideology, media manipulation

Punctum• Broken marriage, hilarious coincidence, seeking for attention

Denotation• A man sitting on a beach chair reading a magazine• A woman with rings sunbathing on another beach chair which is next to the

man, holding his hand• The woman wears similar to the model in the magazine

Connotation• They are a pair of couple dating on a beach • The wife is trying to get her husband’s attention so she hold his hand and

look at his direction• The husband seems more interested in the model in the magazine than his

wife beside him

Studium• Martin Parr indicate the problem of “propaganda” in real life that magazine

promote ideology of attracting female • Husband chose the magazine over his wife• Comparison between the wife and the model

Punctum• Broke the ideal marriage image • Hilarious that how perfect is the coincident that the wife wear and post so

similar to the model in the magazine which her husband is reading• Felt sad that a wife in her age still need to grab her husband’s attention

BRAZIL. RIO DE JANEIRO. COPACABANA BEACH. A MAN AND WOMAN TAKE A SHOWER. 2007.

CONCLUSION• PARR ICONIC AND PREVALENT MEMBER OF MAGNUM PHOTOS • AUTHENTIC WORK THAT TAKES THE ORDINARY MUNDANE LIFE

AND TURNS IT INTO A SPECTACLE • WE CAN RECOGNISE OUR OWN LIVES IN THE PHOTOS

“ PART OF HIS UNUSUAL STRATEGY IS TO PRESENT AND PUBLISH THE SAME PHOTOS IN THE CONTEXT OF ART PHOTOGRAPHY, IN EXHIBITIONS AND IN ART BOOKS, AS WELL AS IN THE RELATED FIELDS OF ADVERTISING AND JOURNALISM. IN THIS WAY, HE TRANSCENDS THE TRADITIONAL SEPARATION OF THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF PHOTOGRAPHY.”

• ROLE MODEL FOR YOUNGER GENERATIONS - EXHIBITIONS

QUESTIONSParr describes himself as a documentary photographer, yet he asserts that “part of the role of photography is to exaggerate”. Is he being contradictory here?

What do you think Parr is trying

to say about British culture in this photograph?

CRITIQUE

REFERENCESBarthes, R. (1981). Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. Paris: Farrar, Straus

and Giroux.

KIM, E. (2012, March 26). 10 Things Martin Parr Can Teach You About Street Photography. Retrieved March 22, 2014, from Eric Kim Street Photography: http://erickimphotography.com/blog/2012/03/26/10-things-martin-parr-can-teach-you-about-street-photography/

Magnum Photos. (n.d.). Martin Parr. Retrieved March 22, 2014, from Magnum Photos: https://www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=CMS3&VF=MAGO31_9_VForm&ERID=24KL5357TF

Weski, T. (n.d.). Introduction. Retrieved March 22, 2014, from Martin Parr: http://www.martinparr.com/introduction/