A Photographic Life-395.5: 'Martin Parr 1952-2025: "Okay. Next Photo. Which One?"'

In this special episode Grant shares his personal memories of photographer Martin Parr and reflects on his influence on contemporary documentary photography. Martin Parr Born in Epsom, Surrey, Parr wanted to become a documentary photographer from the age of fourteen and cited his grandfather, George Parr, an amateur photographer and fellow of the Royal Photographic Society, as an early influence. However, it was not until he was introduced to the work of Tony Ray Jones by Creative Camera and Album editor and writer Bill Jay (www.youtube.com/watch?v=wd47549knOU&t=74s) at a talk whilst Parr was studying photography at Manchester Polytechnic that he identified how his career as a photographer would develop within documentary practice. Parr studied photography at Manchester Polytechnic from 1970 to 1973 with contemporaries Daniel Meadows and Brian Griffin.  Parr and Meadows collaborated on various projects,including working at Butlin's holiday camps as roving photographers. They were part of a new wave of documentary photographers, and the 'New British Photography'. In 1975 Parr moved to Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire where he would complete his first body of work and spent five years photographing rural life in the area. He photographed in black-and-white, creating his series The Non-Conformistswas widely exhibited at the time and published as a book in 2013. In 1980 Parr married Susan Mitchell and, for her work, they moved to the west coast of Ireland where he set up a darkroom in Boyle, County Roscommon. In 1982 they moved to Wallasey, England, and he switched permanently to colour photography. During the summers of 1983, 1984 and 1985 he photographed working-class people at the seaside in nearby New Brighton. This work was published in the book The Last Resort: Photographs of New Brighton (1986) and exhibited in Liverpool and London. He and his wife moved to Bristol in 1987, and he began his next major project, on the middle class, who were at that time becoming increasingly affluent under Thatcherism. He photographed middle-class activities such as shopping, dinner parties and school open days, predominantly around Bristol and Bath which was published as his next book The Cost of Living (1989). Between 1987 and 1994 Parr travelled internationally to make his next major series, a critique of mass tourism, published as Small World in 1995. Between 1995 and 1999 he made the series Common Sense about global consumerism. Common Sense was an exhibition of 350 prints, and a book published in 1999. The exhibition was first shown in 1999 and was staged simultaneously in forty-one venues in seventeen countries. Parr joined Magnum Photos as an associate member in 1988. The vote on his inclusion as a full member in 1994 was divisive, with Philip Jones Griffiths circulating a plea to other members not to admit him. Parr achieved the necessary two-thirds majority by one vote. Alongside his photography he was a passionate collector and critic of photobooks. His collaboration with the critic Gerry Badger, The Photobook: A History (in three volumes) covers more than 1,000 examples of photobooks from the 19th century through to the present day. The first two volumes took eight years to complete. The Martin Parr Foundation was founded in 2014 and opened in Bristol in 2017. The Foundation houses Parr's own archive, and his collection of prints and book dummies made by other photographers—mainly British and Irish photography, and work by several photographers from abroad who have photographed in the UK. There is a gallery open to the public—its first exhibition was Parr's Black Country Stories —and it is a hub for talks, screenings and events. Parr was the Foundation's main source of income. He was diagnosed with cancer in May 2021, and died at his home in Bristol on 6 December 2025. https://martinparr.com ©Grant Scott 2025