British documentary photographer and photojournalist Martin Parr will be giving fans a glimpse into the early days of his career with the arrival of his new book, Early Works.
Focusing on shots taken between 1970 and 1984, the book delves into Martin’s early black and white photography – before he moved to colour in the early 80s.
Martin tells Metro.co.uk: ‘I’m very fond of my black and white work from way back.’
‘I thought it would be a good idea to put all the highlights from my black and white career into one volume and also to find the newer pictures that we’ve come across in the contact prints that we have liked.
‘It’s like a compilation of the very best black and white work that I took, before I changed to colour in 1982.’
The new book features a number of familiar photos from his early days of photography, including his first major body of work The Non-Conformists.
‘The black and white Non-Conformists is like a celebration of a town called Hebden Bridge, and its surrounding areas and it’s very much like catching up with my childhood as I was brought up in suburban Surrey and then went to stay with my grandfather in Yorkshire.
‘I really enjoyed that sense of community, that wasn’t really there in Surrey. So I think when I moved to Hebden Bridge – that sense of community was there in that town, and that was one of the things I was trying to portray.
‘So it was like a celebration. When I moved to colour, the work became more of a critique of society.’
‘I think black and white photos are more melancholy. I think it was easier to do the celebration in black and white and easier to do the critique in colour.’
Beaches and coastlines are a common theme across Martin’s work. Not only do they appear in his upcoming book but they also featured heavily at his Only Human exhibition, which ran at the National Portrait Gallery, earlier this year.
Photos (Picture: Early Works by Martin Parr co-published by RRB Photobooks / Martin Parr Foundation)
‘I have always been fascinated by the beach, ever since an early age,’ he says.
‘I come from a family of bird watchers so we didn’t get seaside resorts, we went to marshes and creeks and estuaries – so I was immediately hooked. I remember going to Brighton as a kid and then – when I went to Manchester Polytechnic – I visited Blackpool resort and since then I’ve become addicted to beaches – not only in this country but the world over.
‘My favourite resort in the UK is Tenby and I liked it so much I went and bought a flat there, with a view over the sea.
‘I could just sit and watch the sea, it’s better than watching the TV, it just keeps on giving.
‘Anyone who gets tired of watching the sea doesn’t deserve to be alive. That’s a bit dramatic isn’t it?’
The new book not only documents Martin’s travels across the UK but features shots taken in India and China in the mid-1980s. In total, readers can expect more than 20 previously unseen photographs with people at the heart of them – in true Parr style.
‘I’m interested in people, in observing and documenting,’ he says. ‘Of course, life has moved on, photography has moved on, I’ve moved on – the world has changed. I’m trying to keep up.
‘If I get 10 really good shots a year, I say it’s a pretty good year. And to achieve that I’ve taken nearly half a million.’
And what makes a great photo for Martin?
‘It’s the moment when everything comes together and there’s some kind of tensional point, or contradiction of ambiguity illustrated.
‘And the other thing is, to articulate that is very difficult, which is why I’m a photographer and not a poet. But you know it when you see it, kind of thing,’ he explains.
Almost 50 years on from the start of his career – and with advances in technology – it’s fair to say that a lot has changed in the world of photography.
‘It’s first gone from analogue and all those horrible chemicals to digital. But also the introduction of the smartphone.
‘Everyone has a camera all the time with them and we are all shooting constantly. It’s the biggest democratic art form in the world and that in itself is an achievement.
‘Photography sounds so simple and straightforward but, in fact, it is quite difficult to find your vision, to find something that’s new and unique to yourself.
‘There’s a lot of bad photography too, remember, we don’t know how many millions of photos will be uploaded onto Facebook today alone, let alone Instagram or anything else.
‘Most of them won’t be any good – which is good news for us photographers who take it more seriously.’
Parr / Magnum Photos (Picture: Early Works by Martin Parr co-published by RRB Photobooks / Martin Parr Foundation)
It’s no secret that Martin has always been a fan of English photographer Tony Ray-Jones. More specifically, it was Ray-Jones’ different way of looking at the world that has influenced Martin over the years.
‘When I was at college someone came in and talked about Tony Ray-Jones and I was completely smitten and it suddenly made me realise what was possible and what I could do myself and that therefore is very inspirational,’ he says.
‘I think he took this spatial way of looking. He was as much interested in the spaces between things as the subject itself but that hadn’t really twigged in the UK because we were too narrative-driven.
‘So I’ve always been a fan of his and I recently did a project where I went through his old contact prints and looked at the pictures that he overlooked and put those into this show, along with his iconic pictures. We are also doing a show which has the iconic photos. And then we’ll show the new prints that I have discovered when I looked through the contact prints.’
The exhibition opens the same day as Parr’s book is released, on October 16, and is set to mark the important contribution that Ray-Jones (and his legacy), has made to British documentary photography.
So with a book launch and a sister exhibition on Ray-Jones running alongside it, what’s next for the acclaimed photographer?
‘This year I’m doing a book, in the next month or so, about selfies and people taking selfies – that’s a modern trend – 20 years ago it didn’t exist. And now, as you know, it’s everywhere. You can’t avoid selfie takers, especially if you go to anything remotely touristy.
‘It’s a new phenomenon, it’s interesting to look at and you actually have the benefit of looking at people and looking at the thing they are photographing all in one viewfinder.
‘More and more people use instant photography and that’s good news for photographers as people are keen to see what we get up to.’
Early Works by Martin Parr comes out on 16 October 2019 and is available to buy online.
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source https://metro.co.uk/2019/10/14/acclaimed-photographer-martin-parr-gives-glimpse-into-his-early-career-with-new-book-10897524/
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