Martin Parr

Martin Parr was born in Epson and studied photography at Manchester Polytechnic from 1970- 1973. He has been working on a number of projects since that time, in 1994 he became a full member of magnum photographic corporation.

He's significant to my possible project because a lot of his photographs comment on society and document the iconic Britain that we know and love. The majority of his photographs document the classic slightly cliche British holiday as it were; so his subjects usually include some type of sea side symbol whether its lobster like women sitting in deckchairs, or young children eating their first 99 flake. A lot of his more interesting images show the contrast and comparrisons between old and new. He usually uses some kind of visual signifier to portray this contrast for example aging and young people, people or even manerisms. These images encapture the spirit and love for Britain and Parr's more iconic and trademark images sum up the tradional British holiday that almost every person can relate too if they look back to their childhood.

Martin Parr's images have a sence of familiarity too them even if the viewer of the image hasnt seen them before because his images enclose so many cliches, although they seem familure they do have a sence of repeatability too because they can be apreciated from so many different angles.

Below are two examples of his work:

Possible themes/ titles

I have been thinking about what I could base my project on and i'm thinking that I could take something quite cliche like 'Best of British' and put my own spin and take on it to create something fresh. I could even have a theme of 'British Cliches' because there are so many different things i could do with that and play around with things that have been done before. I was looking through my AS work and remember doing this:





















This was a rather odd piece and I cant remember what was running through my mind when I did it but its given me an idea; what about 'British Produce'? In my A2 business lesson the other day we covered Morrisons supermarket and went off on a tangent about how large supermarkets can take advantage of the fact British farmers need to supply supermarkets to make money and so supermarkets can knock down british food prices decreasing profit margins for farmers and making farming such a competitive and harsh environment to be in. This has meant that British farming is dying especially the farming of livestock. I believe that a project on British farming and Independant Butchers and Groceries would be not only interesting but would also have historical interest to it in the future.

This brought me to the work of Sam Taylor Wood a former Student at Goldsmiths college and a very successful photographer and installation artist. Here are a few examples of her work when she was battling Cancer and the foot and mouth outbreak had just started.



















In an interview talking about this photograph she said "I remember looking at the cow and wondering which one of us was going to die first but the hole in the hedge symbolised a way out and hope".


This photograph ties in with the idea of the harsh environment of farming and the dwindling numbers of livestock in this country:


















Going back to the idea of 'British Produce' The photographing of Butchers and Groceries side of the project would further my skills in street photography and the farming and countryside, side to it would be something new and fresh for me to cover. This would mean my project would cover countryside and urban subjects.

Ideas and Exploration

Below are a few ideas and inspirations that can hopefully guide me to a clear starting point for A2. It was clear that I needed to look at all different works and mediums that I was passionate about.

A few days ago I was looking at an artist called Kristie Holiday who has just come out of Boston Universities undergraduate programme for fine art. On her blog she had a few artists who had inspired her and she was interested in. One of the works was by Egon Schiele so I looked into him and his works and was quite interested in the simplicity and awkwardness of his paintings. Here are a few examples:

I dont know what I like most about his work but I think its the way
he used a small amount of colour but still captured the emotion and expressions incredibly well.


I have also looked at some of the photographers I rese
arched last year and remember looking at two photographers in particular that really captured my imagination. One being Robert Capa (Endre Erno Friedman) and the other Henri Cartier Bresson. I admire these two photographers and their works because they both captured the decisive moment and made photography look easy. Here are some of Bresson's most interesting prints in my opinion:

These are two of my favourite photographs by Capa:



In the past year I have got more and more into 'Radiohead' and their work as a lot of their songs definitely have a case to be called works of art. Many of their songs contain comments on society, culture and human kind. As I have a strong interest in film this unofficial music video for the song 'Fitter happier' by 'Radiohead' (with animation by an artist producing and uploading videos under the name of 'pabloiranzo' on YouTube) really captured my imagination:





The lyrics almost have a poetic quality to them:


Fitter, happier, more productive,
comfortable,
not drinking too much,
regular exercise at the gym
(3 days a week),
getting on better with your associate employee contemporaries,
at ease,
eating well
(no more microwave dinners and saturated fats),
a patient better driver,
a safer car
(baby smiling in back seat),
sleeping well
(no bad dreams),
no paranoia,
careful to all animals
(never washing spiders down the plughole),
keep in contact with old friends(enjoy a drink now and then),
will frequently check credit at (moral) bank (hole in the wall),
favors for favors,
fond but not in love,
charity standing orders,
on Sundays ring road supermarket(no killing moths or putting boiling water on the ants),
car wash(also on Sundays),
no longer afraid of the dark or midday shadows
nothing so ridiculously teenage and desperate,
nothing so childish - at a better pace,
slower and more calculated,
no chance of escape,
now self-employed,
concerned (but powerless),
an empowered and informed member of society
(pragmatism not idealism),
will not cry in public,
less chance of illness,tires that grip in the wet
(shot of baby strapped in back seat),
a good memory,
still cries at a good film,
still kisses with saliva,
no longer empty and frantic like a cat tied to a stick,
that's driven into frozen winter shit
(the ability to laugh at weakness),
calm,
fitter,
healthier and more productive
like a pig in a cage on antibiotics.


I've also always been interested in Robert Haswell my half brother and sister's grandad who was Royal Photographer of the year twice befor
e the age of 26 and was also a very successful photo journalist for the daily express. He was a great character and was at the heart of a rather comical scandal when he was sacked by the daily express after photographing Princess Marga
ret waterskiing in the nude. Unfortunately he died of cancer in 2002 after battling with the disease for a number of years and so never set up a website. This has meant only a small number of his photos have been published on the internet and the majority of his negatives are still packed away in the attic of his widow's house. Here are just a couple of his images that I could find:


Subject: Anita Erkburg (Actress)

Subject: Sean Connery (Actor)

Subject: Yuri Gagarin (First man in space)

I would be very much interested in looking more into Robert Haswell or as i've always known him 'Grandad with Muscles' (Muscles being the name of one of his dogs who I remember destroying my brothers rubber band propelled plane. I would obviously like to explore photojournalism as a whole however its hard to be in the right place at the right time especially with such a limited amount of time on my hands so I will probably increase the number of weekends I go up to London armed with a camera standing outside Claridges or Harrods playing the waiting game in the hope of getting lucky.

Poster

I have been look at the noir style briefly and wanted to explore this further so I created a film poster out of one of my images and named the film 'Defiant Shadows'.

I used a number of editting techniques on photoshop to create this effect. I changed the hue and saturation as well as turning up the contrast. I colourised the pavement area to a light blue/ green colour after watching Brick for the third time concentrating my thoughts on the cinematography and noticing a blue tint or light blue subject in almost every shot creating an interesting noir style and creating consistancy throughout the film.

The hardest aspect was using the clone stamp effectively without making the use look too amateur. I clone stamped out the people and just left the shadows inspiring the name for the film 'Defiant Shadows'.