Martin Parr famous quotes

I go straight in very close to people and I do that because it's the only way you can get the picture. You go right up to them. Even now, I don't find it easy. I don't announce it. I pretend to be focusing elsewhere. If you take someone's photograph it is very difficult not to look at them just after. But it's the one thing that gives the game away. I don't try and hide what I'm doing - that would be folly.
-- Martin Parr

#Games #Giving #People

If you photograph for a long time, you get to understand such things as body language. I often do not look at people I photograph, especially afterwards. Also when I want a photo, I become somewhat fearless, and this helps a lot. There will always be someone who objects to being photographed, and when this happens you move on.
-- Martin Parr

#Moving #People #Long

All photography is propaganda.
-- Martin Parr

#Photography #Propaganda

You can read a lot about a country by looking at its beaches: across cultures, the beach is that rare public space in which all absurdities and quirky national behaviors can be found,
-- Martin Parr

#Country #Beach #Space

Most of the pictures we consume are propaganda.
-- Martin Parr

#Propaganda

You can't learn passion, either you've got it or you haven't.
-- Martin Parr

#Passion

There are two parts to the process: taking the picture and finding ways of using it.
-- Martin Parr

#Photography #Two #Way

Photography is the simplest thing in the world, but it is incredibly complicated to make it really work.
-- Martin Parr

#Photography #World #Complicated

Photos tend to organize chaos, to define what we're doing here. It is essential that individuals' voices depict the world around us, as we are increasingly controlled by large institutions, large companies and large systems.
-- Martin Parr

#Voice #World #Essentials

With photography, I like to create a fiction out of reality. I try and do this by taking society's natural prejudice and giving this a twist.
-- Martin Parr

#Photography #Reality #Giving

The thing about tourism is that the reality of a place is quite different from the mythology of it.
-- Martin Parr

#Reality #Tourism #Different

Tourism is the biggest industry in the world.
-- Martin Parr

#Tourism #World

Wealthy people have not disappeared, they are just not so willing to show off their wealth.
-- Martin Parr

#People #Wealth #Shows

In 1982 I bought the newly released Makina Plaubel 55mm fixed-lens camera. With this shift from 35mm to 6 x 7, I also changed from black and white to color. Later that year, I started my project on New Brighton called The Last Resort. However, the first project I shot in colour was composed of urban scenes from Liverpool. This image was on the second roll of film. It's the first good photo I made in this new chapter of my work.
-- Martin Parr

#Black And White #Color #Years

Most of the photographs people take with their cameraphones are of little value in terms of documentary.
-- Martin Parr

#People #Littles #Documentaries

Filming is always a challenge because I'm not used to it. But I approach it head-on. I'm not technically brilliant, but it's the spirit that counts.
-- Martin Parr

#Challenges #Brilliant #Spirit

Criticism is hypocrisy; society is hypocrisy. I'm a tourist. I'm a consumer. I do the things that I photograph and can be criticized of.
-- Martin Parr

#Hypocrisy #Criticism #Tourists

Magnum photographers were meant to go out as a crusade ... to places like famine and war and ... I went out and went round the corner to the local supermarket because this to me is the front line.
-- Martin Parr

#War #Lines #Photographer

Taking photos is a form of collecting.
-- Martin Parr

#Form #Collecting

When a mother takes pictures of her children on the beach, she doesn't take herself for an artist; she does it for love, which is an excellent reason, from my point of view.
-- Martin Parr

#Mother #Beach #Children

The danger is, you have a formula and you just repeat it.
-- Martin Parr

#Danger #Formulas

Part of the role of photography is to exaggerate. Most of the photographs in your paper, unless they are hard news, are lies. Fashion pictures show people looking glamorous. Travel pictures show a place looking at its best, nothing to do with the reality... Most of the pictures we consume are propaganda.
-- Martin Parr

#Photography #Fashion #Lying

I am what I photograph.
-- Martin Parr

#Ego #Photograph

I accept that all photography is voyeuristic and exploitative, and obviously I live with my own guilt and conscience. It's part of the test and I don't have a problem with it.
-- Martin Parr

#Photography #Guilt #Tests

I try to photograph my own and society's hypocrisy.
-- Martin Parr

#Hypocrisy #Trying #Photograph

Photography's central role is to be the absolute medium of the day. It is fantastic that there is no longer any technical intimidation.
-- Martin Parr

#Photography #Roles #Intimidation

Everyone is a photographer now, remember. That's the great thing about photography.
-- Martin Parr

#Photography #Photographer #Remember

When I first started learning how to take photographs, you had to spend the first six months figuring out what an f-stop was. Now you just go and take pictures.
-- Martin Parr

#Preparation #Months #Firsts

We are drowning in images. Photography is used as a propaganda tool, which serves to sell products and ideas. I use the same approach to show aspects of reality.
-- Martin Parr

#Photography #Reality #Ideas

I see things going on before my eyes and I photograph them as they are, without trying to change them. I don't warn people beforehand. That's why I'm a chronicler. I speak about us and I speak about myself.
-- Martin Parr

#Eye #People #Trying

Work harder, get closer and be passionate about what you photograph.
-- Martin Parr

#Hard Work #Passionate #Photograph

Nobody thinks about technical issues anymore because cameras or camera phones take care of that automatically. On the other hand, you still have the option of controlling every technical aspect. It's the most accessible, democratic medium available in the world.
-- Martin Parr

#Technology #Thinking #Phones

Color was the palette of commercial photography and snapshot photography.
-- Martin Parr

#Photography #Color #Snapshots

The knack is to find your own inspiration and take it on a journey to create work that is personal and revealing.
-- Martin Parr

#Photography #Inspiration #Journey

I do read many of the photography magazines from the U.K. and abroad.
-- Martin Parr

#Photography #Magazines

As artists get wealthier and more famous, often their work gets worse... I'm fascinated by the decline of artists. I suspect I'll be in decline myself. It's a fact of life.
-- Martin Parr

#Artist #Facts #Facts Of Life

I get up early and open my emails, write cheques, and answer the phone; whatever needs to be done.
-- Martin Parr

#Writing #Phones #Needs

I always take photographs when I attend a funeral. Most people there know who I am and expect me to be there with my camera.
-- Martin Parr

#Who I Am #People #Funeral

I avoid Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, and if I need to communicate with someone, I email direct.
-- Martin Parr

#Needs #Linkedin #Email

I am not as cross about Thatcher now as I was in the '80s. Begrudgingly, I can see that some of her policies helped modernise Britain.
-- Martin Parr

#Britain #Crosses #Policy

Part of the role of photography is to exaggerate, and that is an aspect that I have to puncture. I do that by showing the world as I really find it.
-- Martin Parr

#Photography #World #Roles

You have to take a lot of bad pictures. Dont' be afraid to take bad pictures... You have to take a lot of bad pictures in order to know when you've got a good one.
-- Martin Parr

#Order

Unless it hurts, unless there’s some vulnerability there, I don’t think you’re going to get good photographs.
-- Martin Parr

#Hurt #Thinking #Photograph

My black-and-white work is more of a celebration and the color work became more of a critique of society.
-- Martin Parr

#Black And White #Color #Celebration

The easy bit is picking up a camera and pointing and shooting. But then you have to decide what it is you’re trying to say and express.
-- Martin Parr

#Trying #Shooting #Cameras

Dictators are interesting, no?
-- Martin Parr

#Interesting #Dictator

Choosing sepia is all to do with trying to make the image look romantic and idealistic. It's sort of a soft version of propaganda.
-- Martin Parr

#Trying #Looks #Propaganda

I never think of photographs as being individual. Always as a group.
-- Martin Parr

#Thinking #Groups #Individual

I think the ordinary is a very under-exploited aspect of our lives because it is so familiar.
-- Martin Parr

#Thinking #Ordinary #Aspect

For those aspiring to make a living from travel photography, it's a sad fact that the boring shots are the shots that are going to make you money.
-- Martin Parr

#Photography #Facts #Boring

I am not a huge follower of music and tend to like one CD and play it to death, usually when I am washing up.
-- Martin Parr

#Play #Cds #Followers

I am away so much, so I rarely see live TV, but I use iPlayer to catch programmes.
-- Martin Parr

#Use #Tvs

I am kept awake by the list of possibilities for shooting more photos and deciding what I must prioritise next.
-- Martin Parr

#Lists #Shooting #Next

I am a big fan of Jim Jarmusch, and I do love big screen documentaries.
-- Martin Parr

#Documentaries #Fans #Bigs

I toyed with the notion of being an actor, and am so glad that this whim did not go any further.
-- Martin Parr

#Actors #Whim #Notion

I have been photographing people dancing for 20 or 30 years now, and I think I will eventually do a book of dancing photos.
-- Martin Parr

#Book #Thinking #Years

I looked around at what my colleagues were doing, and asked myself, 'What relationship has it with what's going on?' I found there was a great distortion of contemporary life. Photographers were interested only in certain things. A visually interesting place, people who were either very rich or very poor, and nostalgia.
-- Martin Parr

#Interesting #People #Photographer