Martin Parr a man I’ve been very curious of for years now, his interest in the every day life of ordinary people getting on with there days is something so special in photography form, something that I admire to be able to go out into public and capture the purest form of the mundane everyday, its simplicity baffles me yet I don’t believe any photographer could capture these moments alike Parr does.
Something I aspire to within Parr’s work is the colour grading in which he chooses, often these pieces pop out with bursts of colour often reds or yellow, giving a vintage feel to the images yet in a simplistic way, he also uses black and white images to contrast, the colour grading style is something I’ve taken away from his works.
The most admirable aspect for me is seeing how over the years Parr has photographer Mancunians within there day to day life’s from 1972 – 1982 – 18983 to his most recent work in 2008 showing how the community has developed and how we lived then and now, there’s something so raw about these images, they’re not forced they’re simply existing.
I’ve recently started back up with photography and I’m researching new artists, I’m currently looking at a new book titled: “Women’s Market: Great Homer Street, Sat 8-4” BY Tom Wood, within this book I noticed many similarities to Parr’s work the simplicity of everyday life and this is something I want to develop on to go out into the streets of Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield and capture people going about there everyday lives.
Although I do feel in todays society this can be much more difficult to when Parr first started with his Manchester photography in the early 80’s as now in todays society we have to consider people a lot more and get people to sign forms etc. giving us permission that in fact could take away the simplicity and natural aspect of the shots, only time shall tell.
