Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => The Coffee Corner => Topic started by: drmike on July 02, 2017, 04:28:55 pm
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I know that not everyone is a fan of Martin Parr - I am - and he was speaking at my local theatre (Worcester in the UK) on Saturday evening so I went along and it was 15 quid well spent :) although not everyone agreed.
I did wonder how interesting it would be because he never seems a very powerful personality and clearly has the ability to recede into the background. He came across as a really warm, caring person with a very good intellect - I hadn't realised he was a professor of something or other at a university in the UK and a visiting professor in another.
He also spoke of his early years which was interesting and seeing his early work in college etc. was interesting as it is the sort of rite of passage loads of people go through. A difference is that he was driven to make it happen and he clearly did.
He definitely defined himself as a documentary photographer rather than an artist which I thought was interesting as I'd say art oozes from his more successful work. He clearly loves people and life in general - he's also a hoarder of Saddam Hussein watches, old postcards (his most successful book is 'boring postcards' amongst other collections.
He judged a competition run by the club who ran the event and tried very hard to offer critiques of the ten winning entries. He was very amusing throughout and managed the awards of prizes very well.
Next year it's Joe Cornish who will speak which I shall toddle along to although I'm not much taken with his work.
Mike