watts Posted November 22, 2004 Share Posted November 22, 2004 Trevor, don't know if you already have a copy, but I received this morning (from amazon) a Martin Parr Stern special. It appears to be one of a portfolio series and, frankly, I had no great expectations about it when ordering it. I rather assumed it would be a simple compilation of familiar stuff but it has a lot of material in it I haven't seen before and many of the images are impressively printed over large (A3+) double page spreads. Well worth the just under-a-tenner cost. Direct amazon.co.uk link <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/3570194450/026-0990949-0654009?%5Fencoding=UTF8" target="_blank">here</a>. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
olivier_reichenbach Posted November 22, 2004 Share Posted November 22, 2004 I am not a stickler for the rules, but if this was a message intended solely for Trevor, maybe a direct e-mail would have done it. Just a thought. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
watts Posted November 22, 2004 Author Share Posted November 22, 2004 Fair point. I guess I did word it as if the post was only intended for the benefit of Trevor but I meant it equally as much as a general point of interest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mangydog Posted November 22, 2004 Share Posted November 22, 2004 Thanks Ian, glad to know about it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
terry_rory Posted November 22, 2004 Share Posted November 22, 2004 Thanks Ian. Its on order. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
olivier_reichenbach Posted November 22, 2004 Share Posted November 22, 2004 Then thanks, Ian. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
terry_rory Posted November 22, 2004 Share Posted November 22, 2004 It's been a heavy week on the the book budget this week! (William Eggleston x 2, Martin Parr and Nigel Shafran. My first thought (before I read your post thoroughly) was 'compiliation' but material not seen before and big A3 prints tempted me. To anyone here who has not come across Martin Parr before then this is what it is all about.....<a href="http://www.magnumphotos.com/c/htm/FramerT_MAG.aspx?Stat=Portfolio_DocThumb&V=CDocT&E=29YL53DQDQD&DT=ALB">click here</a> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
terry_rory Posted November 22, 2004 Share Posted November 22, 2004 His definitive stuff is from about page 21 onwards (after he gave up on B&W) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mangydog Posted November 22, 2004 Share Posted November 22, 2004 But I love the B&W too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
derek_stanton2 Posted November 23, 2004 Share Posted November 23, 2004 Trevor and Ian - Could someone 'explain' Martin Parr to me? What is it that you like? What am i supposed to see? My curiosity is sincere. I just don't 'get it.' I would really like to understand.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
terry_rory Posted November 23, 2004 Share Posted November 23, 2004 He points the mirror back at us and our lives and environs, attitudes, class and even what we consume. He makes me laugh and wince at others and just when I get comfortable I turn the page and my own life is cut straight through to the quick with the laser of his Plaubel Makina and lurid Agfa Ultra 50 120 rollfilm or shoved under the 'microscope' of his Nikon 60mm Macro and ringflash, whether it is the uptight insecurities of the chattering classes or the dayglo coloured junk food slopped out in fast food outlets in some low rent resort or the clumsy arrogance of the perpetual hordes of tourists in the worlds 'honeypots' desperately snapping everything that moves so they can prove 'they were there'. He is a specialist in the subtle minutiae of the tacky and tawdry and is the white hot beam that slices into the curtain twitching netherworld of the real life 'Hyacinth Bouquets' of uptight suburbia. He is a magpie and a vociferous collector of gaudy things. He has a social antenna that is tuned to perfection by his own background and has an enormous curiosity that will propel him straight into a total strangers shopping basket with a giant camera/flash rig and leave them wondering what just happened.... "Why did that man want to photograph my sliced ham and trifles Arthur?" He has the height and bearing and manner of a kindly well spoken home-counties English master and the concommitent invisibility cloak that attends one. He is utterly ordinary and loves what the utterly ordinary can look like when abstracted from reality and displayed 6 foot by 3 foot on a gallery wall. (Best way to see his work) I could go on and on. I understand him because my world and the 'worlds' he disects (so subtly and with a low key fond humour) are one. Maybe if you did not grow up in post war Britain then he is a mystery but the world beyond Britain has flocked to his work so he seems to have international appeal. (His exhibitions have launched in 17 countries on the same day!) He has outsold any other Magnum photographer in recent years which is why Magnum both hate him and need him in equal measure. He has been accused of inhumanity by some of the old scrotes at Magnum but he pays for them to sit there and complain and I believe his work is some of the most human around. People can get really agitated about his work and I don't care because I know he is brilliant and I 'feel' his work on a gut level from my entire background and being! If it doesn't touch you that will never matter. (It would be like someone saying they don't like my private memories, I find his work THAT close to me.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
terry_rory Posted November 23, 2004 Share Posted November 23, 2004 Phew, got carried away a bit there. Sorry Derek I didnt mean to use the fire hose! I can't begin to imagine if that helped you or not. Martin Parr and Bill Brandt are my "Desert Island" photographers and if forced to have only one favourite then Brandt would go in the recycler. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
terry_rory Posted November 23, 2004 Share Posted November 23, 2004 And I should have said 'concomitant'. (My spelling is awful. Sorry again.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
derek_stanton2 Posted November 23, 2004 Share Posted November 23, 2004 Well, thank you, Trevor. That was very nicely written. I suppose i should see his work printed large-scale. That he reflects culture's vulgarities back at us is where i fail to find the appeal. I'm trying in my life to rid it of the vulgar. It wouldn't occur to me to make it 'art.' I will give it another chance, though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
malcolm_rains Posted November 23, 2004 Share Posted November 23, 2004 Very insightful analysis Trevor. As someone who was also born in England I know exactly what you mean yet Parr's work also transcends borders.Martin Parr is one of the two most important photographic chroniclers of contemporary life - the other being Ed Burtynsky who documents our desecration of the natural enviroment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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