Martin Parr

When Martin Parr began photographing in the early 1970s, the photographers whose work he most admired – Gary Winogrand, Tony Ray-Jones, Robert Frank and Bill Brandt – worked primarily in black and white, adopting a quiet methodology to observe the world around them, concentrating on gesture and idiosyncrasy. For Parr, photography in the 1970s was primarily an exploration of hidden worlds and obscure practices, all under the mantle of ‘the ordinary’.
Perhaps best-known today for his vibrant, color work, Martin Parr spent the late years of his education and early years of his photographic career documenting fast disappearing aspects of life in the British Isles in monochrome.