Most photo books I look at as a photographer; trying to understand the art and thinking that went into the creation of both the images and the volume. With this book I am taken to a completely different place, a nostalgic retreat into a sense of England that I have dearly missed during my 18 years in Germany. It see it as an impressive photographic tour de force, but also works in so many other ways. There is biting satire, juxtapositions of the wealthy with the working class, a group of horsemen contrast with the a picture on the lid of a jigsaw puzzle, a handbag with a builders lunch bag, an ear-ringed bald head with a jeweled watch, it goes on and on. As Gerry Badger states in the brief introduction to the book, this is the creation of the England we hold in our minds, it only exists fleetingly, but is what many expats hang onto as their dream of home.
Apart from the construct of the England of tea parties, seaside resorts, huntsmen, floral dresses, and jumble sales, the book is a homage to the qualities of highly saturated colour film. It explodes with garish colours, Parr's England lives in an eternal summer, the greys of winter are forever banished. This is further enhanced by the design of the book. There are few white borders, pages are full bleed, punctuated with single photo two page spreads and double photo one page composites. The book seems to break every rule of art publishing, it has more of the quality of someones holiday snaps crammed together into a cheap print on demand volume. However, this structure is very effective, it takes the emphasis away from the single photo and places it firmly on looking at the book as a whole. I found myself paging backwards and forwards finding new details, new threads of thought, simply marveling at the power of observation.
Looking deeper into the book there are a number of elements that I can take away and apply to my own work, in particular my current study of the Oktoberfest. Colour; lots and lots of colour, I need to be less afraid of over-saturating my images, but at the same time must remember that the overall set must hang together visually. In Parr's book, the very last image of a Gatso camera warning sign has far greater impact because it is almost monochrome, it almost says funs over back to the real England of grinding work and bureaucracy. This can be done once, but not many more times. Detail; many of the photos in the book bring the camera in very close, picking out small details. From an assignment perspective this is not easy to include as human interactions become obscured, but for my book, it is a necessary element that can be used to break the flow and add context. Irony and Metaphor. I put these two together as they are the hidden message, the former created by how the images are ordered, the latter by the content of individual images. This is a skill I am trying to develop, however, it really does require a practiced eye and a very agile mind to create images containing these attributes.
The more I look at Martin Parr and his view on the world around him, the more I feel I can learn. He presents the world we live in, he does not need to highlight poverty or disadvantage in the world. His world is my world, full of the absurdities of middle class living. This is documentary of the life we lead and something I find I want to capture here in Germany. My long term project, Die Muenchener, has a goal not dissimilar to "Think of England", but I do need to be careful, my treatment is supposed to be Robert Frank, not Martin Parr. But! Perhaps they have more in common that we think?
Interesting to compare the two photographers and wonder about the different effects of colour v monochrome.
ReplyDeleteI might develop that as part of mt essay on Frank, part of the who influenced Frank and then who did he influence. I can see the origins of much modern documentary photography in Franks work.
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