Martin Parr

Martin Parr is one of the world's most famous photographers. His photography, while having varying subjects and genres (portraiture to food), has a constant style that is unique to him and has almost become his trademark.

This mostly consists of very highly saturated colours and using a flash gun to create images that are not so flattering. I wish to use a flashgun with my own work and so looking at how others use it will benefit me when I shoot for myself.

The style of his images is what intrigues me most. I find the way the images are so saturated with colour interesting because it's so different to what I would usually shoot and what is popular. When I first saw his work I saw it as tacky, because that's the connotations we have with these bright, garish colours. However, after actually looking into the photographs and studying the subjects then I found that this way of shooting really works for what he does.

This image is very in your face; the colours are very prominent and the subject isn't something we'd choose to look at and so may make an audience uncomfortable. It was taken in Benidorm in 1997. Parr has been taking photographs at the beach since the early stages of his photographic career, and still continues to do this. 

Unlike the works of Anthony Luvera, who also uses a flashgun, Parr's images have a bright, well exposed and highly saturated look to them. This difference, I believe, is down to the way that Parr shoots during the day, while Luvera shoots during the night where there is no available light to expose his backgrounds and work with the flash. Parr is able to use a combination of daylight and flashgun to create this popping saturation.

The image above has a lot of bright colours in the background too; the blues of the sea particularly helps brighten the image, as well as the obvious bright yellow from the ball the man is holding.

An interesting aspect of this image is how Parr chooses to hide the man's identity by cropping his head out, yet the viewer tries to gather information to create this body into a person. For me, my very first thoughts were that he has children because of the ball, yet there is absolutely no way I could know that from this image. 

The composition is also very different; the man facing to the side and being at the very edge of the photo isn't a traditional or often practised way of taking somebody's photo, yet the basic principles of composition are in there. It roughly follows the rule of thirds, which the background of walking men (specifically the arm of the first man) being the first third, the second being the middle portion and the third being the line between the man's stomach and the ball. The men about to walk past also create leading lines in conjunction with where sand meets sea, which lead the viewer's eye to the ball.

I am likely to keep in mind how Parr lights his images because I'd like to also use a flash gun. I'd like to experiment with how my images work with a flashgun before using it in conjunction with this very bright daylight that Parr uses. I personally prefer how Luvera's images looked with the flash gun, however it's good for me to understand how available lighting can affect my flash lighting.