Observer

[seamus finn]

Amazing how humans pass the time... from where I'm sittin'.

[RSL]

Very Martin Parr, Seamus. Good shooting.

[seamus finn]

Thanks, Russ, I take that as a compliment. Some people hate Mr. Parr and others love his work. Personally he's the one I admire most because he uses his camera as a tool to comment on ordinary, modern life and its every-day excesses. He doesn't need exotic locations for background.  His view is unmercifully cruel but deadly accurate. It can be painful to view because it tells us so much about ourselves, but behind everything he shoots, there's compassion as well, if you look for it.

One time, I had a surreal experience about him: I was in Brisbane, strolling along the bank of the river, heading towards the Brisbane Powerhouse which is an arts and cultural hub.

My son. Kevin,  is a well-regarded graphic designer in Australia and we have a lot in common that way. We were casually discussing great photographers and I was extolling the unique insights of Mr. Martin Parr as we approached the Power House. Unbelievably, as we drew near and I looked up, I saw a huge hoarding on the side of the building, advertising an exhibition of his latest work - running as we spoke.  

Well, it was amazing. My belief in serendipity got a great boost that day.

 

[RSL]

Interesting, Seamus. I'm a Martin Parr fan too, for the very reasons you so eloquently set forth. I was delighted to see Mr. Parr become a full member of Magnum. He richly deserved the honor, and I know there was resistance from the more stodgy members. There's no way to know, but I'd be willing to bet Elliott Erwitt was one of his boosters. Elliott's one of my all-time favorites too.

[Rob C]

Interesting, Seamus. I'm a Martin Parr fan too, for the very reasons you so eloquently set forth. I was delighted to see Mr. Parr become a full member of Magnum. He richly deserved the honor, and I know there was resistance from the more stodgy members. There's no way to know, but I'd be willing to bet Elliott Erwitt was one of his boosters. Elliott's one of my all-time favorites too.

That, Russ, is either extrapolation run mildly riot or simply wishful thinking!

Unlike Seamus, I detest the Parr ethic and always have. It's no secret I'm no lover of the great unwashed on holiday (especially in lycra), but that does not mean that I appreciate open, blatant and very public mockery of their plight, even if they don't know that they have deep plight! Colour-snaps-with-flash of stamper's 'working heroes' sitting crunching ices, their kids in the gutter, isn't pretty, and neither are closeups of the fare offered and accepted in the greasy spoon cafés where some have to eat. Shooting that kind of deperate lifestyle changes nothing for its victims: all it does is raise the marketability of the po-faced guy with the camera. Maybe that's at the base of my dislike for what professional street/documentary can become: self-promotion at the cost of life's losers.

Incidentally, in case you or Seamus are wondering, I do not accuse either of you of the above sentiments, so rest easy, your work is entirely different.

Parr first unfolded before my jaundiced eye on the pages of the British Journal of Photography, a once-great magazine that was pretty much the voice and information centre for the British professional body. Some years into my subscription the ethos changed and different voices took over, the professional part of the content becoming diluted and downgraded (exactly as with schools of the time) – presumably to widen the demographic (which in the 60s and 70s was easy: there were then far more ‘students' in photographic courses than there were photographic jobs in the marketplace) – and rather than a pro-centred publication it switched to student massage. Inevitable, the decline led to my subscription being cancelled and then, once abroad, I started it up again, until both my own business and the magazine had become different worlds, both mutually redundant one to the other. I did, however, join the website for a couple of years until that became a breeding ground of morons, at which time several of us more rational folks left and started our own little show, and some of us meet here, too. In the event, it appears that things got so bad at the BJP site after we left, that the chat-forum was shut down. Beware, LuLa; those malignant voices can destroy anything. (As for the BJP - I haven't seen one in years; it may have regained its original value - I hope so for the sake of future generations of professional snappers; more than ever do they need a voice.)

However, during those years when I did subscribe, Parr became a sort of standard – gold standard almost – for UK photojournalism. The same kind of representational photographic guru status can be observed in the UK tv industry, where it’s now the turn of Rankin to fly the flag of national photographic icon, and he’s become the successor to Bailey whenever an icon is required. They sometimes trot out one of my long-term heroes, McCullin, when the need to air some memories arises…

It’s really quite remarkable how the media can both create and ‘uncreate’ its chosen few.

Rob C

[seamus finn]

Rob,

I’d say very many people agree with you. I thought the same myself when I first discovered Parr – I concluded he was savage, exploitative, pointless and unscrupulous, but I changed my mind over time as I began to realise what he’s about. Accused of ridiculing mankind, he simply says mankind IS ridiculous.

The thing about Parr is that people either love him or hate him – there seems to be no middle ground. He nearly split Magnum when he applied for full membership and was possibly the most controversial and polarising figure ever to be brought into the group. In 1994, Philip Jones Griffiths begged his colleagues to turn him down  on the basis that he was the enemy of everything Magnum stood for.


Parr says: ‘My detractors probably think I deliberately set out to portray the brutality of life, the decay, the dissolution. It is not true. I see very clearly in my mind the things that are going on in the world and I want to take photographs and build them into bodies of work which address these ideas and problems. Of course I am biased, of course I am voyeuristic, of course I exploit but I believe this applies to all photography and I am only unusual insofar as most photographers always deny these things whereas I am happy that we are all voyeuristic and exploitative. How can you not be. But built into the psyche of the Magnum photographer is that you should be out there helping the world to be a better place. I don’t believe that is true. I’ve been at (Magnum) meetings and overheard photographers bemoaning the fact that there wasn’t a war on that they could cover.’

Cartier-Bresson told him at a Parr exhibition a year later: ‘I have only one thing to say to you. You are from a completely different planet to me.’

On that, at lease, we can agree!

[Rob C]

Cartier-Bresson told him at a Parr exhibition a year later: ‘I have only one thing to say to you. You are from a completely different planet to me.’

On that, at lease, we can agree!

Indeed, Seamus, no argument there!

Magnum must be facing strange days. It's been through so many phases (of the world) and clung on, but I do wonder if it's time is nigh.

Was a time that France had several photo-agencies apparently doing well, but bit by bit they folded. With the death of many reportage-style magazines, where on Earth can they continue to market their stuff? Perhaps that's Parr's advantage: selling for them on that other planet.

;-)

Rob C

[RSL]

Rob,

How do you feel about Edward Hopper's "Nighthawks?" Was Hopper mocking people who inhabit hashhouse restaurants in the middle of the night? Hopper is one of my all-time favorite painters and a lot of his work is voyeuristic, but none of it mocks its subjects.

I see the same kind of realism in Parr's work that I see in Hopper's, and in both of them there's something that transcends realism. Both say: "This is the way it really is," but both show something beyond that: something significant, something beyond immediate human experience, something that helps us understand our own lives.

To me the antithesis of Hopper's and Parr's work is a photograph of a hobo huddled on the street: the kind of mocking, opportunistic shot that ignorant photographers think illustrates "Certain half-deserted streets /  The muttering retreats / Of restless nights in one-night-cheap hotels. . ."* when in fact, what it illustrates is a poor sod wracked by mental illness. That's the kind of "street" photograph that mocks its subject.

The reason I think Erwitt probably was behind Parr during the Magnum hassle is that both men have a transcendent sense of humor. They both laugh at the human experience but not at the people who are having the experience. There's a huge difference. Check out Elliott's "Las Vegas, Nevada, 1954," It's the picture of the woman pulling a pistol-equipped arm on an evil-looking slot machine. He hasn't made that woman look ridiculous; he's made the whole slot machine experience look ridiculous, which it is. There's a big difference, and I see that difference in Parr's work.


*Thanks, T.S.

[seamus finn]

Magnum must be facing strange days. It's been through so many phases (of the world) and clung on, but I do wonder if it's time is nigh

Rob,

They say the same about newspapers.

I have lived through over forty years of changing newspaper life, including dealing with photographers, a tribe for whom I have a special affection and admiration. Notice: I don't include myself in that select group. Them and reporters: I love what they do when they do it for the right reason.

I belong to the written world, in the knowledge that a good picture paints a thousand words, but a picture without words doesn't always make much sense. So, the hacks and the snappers learn to live with one another. It used to be an easy alliance - nowadays it's a matter of trying to survive the ravages of the internet age.

If you were a hack many years ago, as I was and still am at heart, snappers assumed you could write but they knew in their souls that you knew feck all about taking pictures. And they were mostly right. To add insult to injury, they also managed to maintain a particular swagger, an impression that they had a special insight into human life that you did not.

At any level, they were an exclusive club and to gain entry, you needed to have a lot more credentials than some knowledge about shutter speeds and f. stops.  I remember a lot of time spent sitting in god-forsaken darkrooms, discussing the merits of a particular developer brew over another - before going on to argue over what the picture actually meant.

During my time, I seem to have passed that daunting entry test, but even still, I'm not sure about my standing in the tribe - as they, no doubt, wonder about their status with me! Give me words any time - but hand me a great picture too and if I have to make a choice, the picture will probably win.

In the last ten years of my career, I saw more jaw-dropping  technological changes than I experienced in the previous three decades. To answer your proposition, picture agencies are going through a massive challenge - little or no outlets and an unimaginable internet wall. It's the same with newspapers - look at how desperately they're trying to survive. Even the best of them are struggling. Falling readership and revenue equals lack of blood supply. Look at (I think) the fifth episode of 'The Wire' to get a clue.

I have no idea how the future will pan out for any of the traditional media. I'm glad I am no longer part of it. I am not optimistic. My only hope is that the still image, the photograph, will maintain its power - in whatever format it presents itself. As for me, a computer may take a picture, but it won't write the words to go with it.

[stamper]

I am not familiar with his work so can't comment directly. However?

Quote Rob C


Unlike Seamus, I detest the Parr ethic and always have. It's no secret I'm no lover of the great unwashed on holiday (especially in lycra), but that does not mean that I appreciate open, blatant and very public mockery of their plight, even if they don't know that they have deep plight! Colour-snaps-with-flash of stamper's 'working heroes' sitting crunching ices, their kids in the gutter, isn't pretty,

Unquote

If anyone is on holiday in Mallorca you will often see "wrongly" dressed punters from all walks of life. Ordinary working class people right up to large yacht owners dressed strangely. Even men in their late seventies with bandanas and pony tails.