“Creating fiction based of my version of reality”
Martin Parr is a renowned British documentary photographer. On the 9th of February I spent the evening listening to Parr and his perspective on his photographic career.
Parr reflected on his time spent up north, studying at Manchester before moving to West Yorkshire to open up a community gallery named Albert Street, and later moving to the Wirral where he produced his most iconic work: The Last Resort.
Although Parr was always interested in capturing clichés, this became more evident within The Last Resort, photographing sun bathers next to heavy machinery and families surrounded by litter. He noted these clichés became political as his photographs documented Britain during the 1980's and the era of Margret Thatcher- a time that effected Merseyside and the whole of Britain significantly with rising unemployment rates and a decreased standard of living.
Parr later went on to have an infatuation with the British middle class claiming that this group went largely undocumented within the media through out the late 20th century. He explained that whilst growing up in a middle class background in Surrey, he felt under represented and went on to photograph middle class garden parties. Parr later went on to wrongly assume that everyone from the audience was middle class leaving a bit of a sour taste. Maybe it is true what they say about meeting your idols.
Nether the less, Parr went on to academically reflected on his previous documentary works, he often referred back to subjectivity and truth within photography stating that he was creating fictions based of his own version of reality. Hearing this from an established documentarian was motivating as this idea of truth within documentary photography is a convention that I enjoy playing with throughout my own work.
At the end of the talk, he held a Q&A session. The question I proposed was 'I'm a student at the University of Huddersfield studying photography, If you were to give on piece of advice to an emerging photographer, what would it be?'
Parr replied suggesting that you should find a subject that your obsessed with and make unique images- always find a subject that is close to you and that you care about and you will be motivated to make work. I suppose that is true, if you enjoy the work your making you won’t see it as work!