Culture
5 Minutes With… Photographer Martin Parr
Witty, visionary and occasionally controversial, documentary photographer Martin Parr sits down to speak with us ahead of his upcoming Kyoto exhibition
One of the leading British photographers of our time, with more than 140 books and countless noteworthy exhibitions over the past 50 years, Martin Parr has redefined documentary photography through his distinctive visual language filled with vibrant, saturated colours and bold frameworks that capture the spirit of our surroundings with a touch of ambivalence.
Ahead of his shoot in Kyoto for the Magnum Photos Small World series – an ongoing collection of works centred on global tourism, first published in 1996 – Parr chats with us from the site of his eponymous foundation in Bristol, speaking about humour, obsession, controversy and unravelling the essence of ‘seeing’.
[Photo: Eric Garault/Paris Match/Contour by Getty Images]
Your grandfather was the key influence for you starting this career in photography. Would you perhaps share an anecdote that influenced the way you see your surroundings, stemming from your relationship with him?
Martin Parr: I lived in Surrey, near London, and would visit my grandfather in Yorkshire on my own when I was 10 or 11. It was a very different kind of place. He was a keen amateur photographer who worked with bromide prints – a technique where you take a picture, bleach it, and then re-ink it so you can control the lightness and darkness. It was essentially the manual version of Photoshop.
We went out shooting together, processed film together, and worked in the darkroom. When I saw the print coming up in the developer, it was very exciting. By the age of 13 or 14, I knew I was going to be a photographer.
My grandfather had a good sense of design and took very pictorial shots, but he also had other pictures that weren’t so pictorial – these were the ones I really liked. So I was inspired both by him being a photographer and by the images he captured.
Would you say the images you capture are defined by the locations you choose or by the ideas you already have?
I think place defines my relationship to where I am. In England, for instance, I’m trying to take pictures and find images that really show my relationships. It’s very subjective – that’s my priority. So, inevitably, the subject is very important, but what I’m truly trying to articulate are my feelings toward that subject.
[Photos: From the series Small World © Martin Parr/Magnum Photos]
You’ve been all over the world, and the sitters in your photography come from everywhere – they’re very different culturally and socially. But somehow there is a universal thread that ties all the images together. Would you say that this thread is you?
It is, really. It is the way I react to it. That is the thread. If I do a different type of project, I’m still trying to show my response to the world through photography.
Are there any locations you would like to visit in particular?
I never got to Iran – I couldn’t get a visa to go there. Now it’s too late, because I’m somewhat half-disabled, so I can’t do much travelling, and it’s a very dangerous place to go to for British and American people. But all the other countries I really wanted to go to, I did, especially places like Japan.
In the ’80s, I was discovering the amazing books from what we called the Provoke Period – Daidō Moriyama and all. It was very exciting to find these books and bring them back. This was the day when no one really knew who people like Nobuyoshi Araki and Daidō Moriyama were in Europe and America.
You’re a famously avid collector of photography books. Is there any particular book you favour?
I have the first edition – signed by Daidō Moriyama – of Farewell Photography, one of my favourites. And the very first book I bought, The Americans by Robert Frank, is an important one.
Do you think the way we see images nowadays has changed?
I’m looking for new photographers all the time. When I don’t recognise their work, I get excited. Often I see copies of people like Nan Goldin, Stephen Shore, and when you see a photograph that I can’t find the source of, that’s when it gets exciting. That means the photographer started to create their own vision.
[Photos: From the series Small World © Martin Parr/Magnum Photos]
How is the longevity – the life – of an image influenced in our time of digital bombardment?
You know, if you see something brilliant like Frank’s The Americans – every picture in that book is very, very good, and you remember every picture, and when you look at it, you’re reminded how advanced and how brilliant the guy was. So it’s all to do with looking for pictures and, again, as I said, if you don’t recognise it, then that’s a good sign that there’s something interesting happening here. I mean, Robert Frank was very radical when it came out. There was nothing else like it in the world.
Speaking of radical, you were almost thrown out of college, and The Last Resort, shown at the Serpentine, drew some objections. In past interviews, you’ve said that “controversy is a good thing.” Could you explain these words, particularly in the context of how The Last Resort was received and your relationship to the tradition of documentary photography?
I mean, some people liked The Last Resort and some people didn’t like it, but they disliked it with such energy – it was such a furore. It made me think I must be onto something here, otherwise it would not have upset them that much. That was the same when I joined Magnum. Half of the Magnum photographers were against me, half were for me, and they had a huge row.
But in the end, I guess you could argue that you can’t be – will not be – ignored if you are put in that kind of argument. So it’s better to be noticed and disliked than to be ignored entirely.
In the face of current political, social, cultural and climate challenges, how do you think about the importance of imagery and words and their relation?
Photographs work in any language. You know, if you speak German and don’t speak English, you will never really understand what’s going on, but photography is very democratic.
[Photos: From the series Small World © Martin Parr/Magnum Photos]
Have you had to deal with disputes after photos were taken? Perhaps the sitter didn’t like the way they were captured – like in Bored Couples, for example, as it is not necessarily a flattering kind of depiction of love?
These people in the Bored Couples indeed have written me and said we don’t like the photo. But they probably haven’t really seen the pictures.
Do you encounter these disputes once in a while?
Oh yeah, but mostly when taking the pictures. I get someone telling me, “You can’t do this, it’s illegal.” It isn’t – it is perfectly legal to take pictures. I normally then show them the pictures. If it’s not very good, I just delete it, and then it’s all over. It’s much easier now with digital than it would have been with film.
Do you move flexibly between the two mediums still, or do you primarily use digital?
I used film for 30 or 40 years before I switched to digital in 2008, so I wasn’t the first to do so, but I changed when the full-frame DSLR came out.
You’ve been to Kyoto many times before and are now heading there for a new set of works. Have you thought about where you would like to go during this visit?
It will be cherry blossom time, I hope, so it will be very, very busy. I will just go around different temples. We will then do a projection of my photography for the exhibition. There will be two sets: older pictures from the Small World series will be framed, and the new ones taken in Kyoto will be projected.
[Photos: From the series Small World © Martin Parr/Magnum Photos]
You once said that, to be a good photographer, you need to be obsessed, for example with how you see things and how you connect with surroundings. Are there any other passions you enjoy?
I have these crazy collections, like of space dog ephemera, but my life is dedicated to photography, so I don’t need other obsessions, or rather hobbies. I like going for walks in the countryside. I like a nice meal. I’m looking forward to going to Japan because the food there is very good.
Are there any younger artists you’re currently following?
I like people like Stephen Gill – he’s big in Japan. Here at the foundation, we have Siân Davey, she’s very good. Yes, there are plenty. We put on four shows a year here.
Would you tell us a little bit about your foundation and what you would like to do in the coming years?
We started the foundation in 2017, and we have a great team of people. We have someone looking after the membership, we have a good bookshop, we do shows, we have talks – we had Johnny Pitts here to introduce his new book. The main purpose of the foundation is to support and give a platform to other British and Irish documentary photographers.
One of the key things often discussed in your work is how your sense of humor is played. What do you think is the difference between satire and self-acceptance?
[laughs] Humour, I mean, I don’t analyse it; certainly it is what I put in the photograph. When I look at the world, it is a funny place. So how could you not put it in? So remember we talked about my relationship to the world – often I found that very funny, and I also think it is sad as well.
[Photos: From the series Small World © Martin Parr/Magnum Photos]
You don’t think you are cynical?
No, I don’t think so. I am just mischievous.
One final question: are you hopeful about where the world is heading?
I am hopeful and depressed about it. When I look at the world – the wars, climate change and disasters we have – I get very depressed. Yet I am ultimately, naturally, a hopeful and positive person. So there is a contradiction.
That pretty much sums up your work, I suppose, in a way.
Yes, we could say that.
Martin Parr’s most recent work, currently being shot in Kyoto, will be exhibited together with the existing Small World photography series at Tadao Ando’s Time’s Building in Kyoto from 12 April to 11 May 2025.
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