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Lead ImageThe Last Resort, New Brighton, EnglandPhotography by Martin Parr
No one knows us Brits better than Martin Parr. He really sees us, for better or for worse. Baked beans on toast, Sunday cricket, fish and chip shops, Carnival parades, Jubilee parties, bog-snorkellers and seaside resorts have all comprised “Parr land”, an ongoing tapestry of the island nation that has made Parr a name that is synonymous with Britishness itself.
The tables have turned this year with Parr becoming the subject, first in Lee Shulman’s documentary I Am Martin Parr, and now in his own autobiography, billed on his website as one “like no other”. For Utterly Lazy and Inattentive, the photographer teamed up with friend and writer Wendy Jones, who, over many interviews, put onto paper Parr’s stories about the 150 photographs he hand-selected for the book. They take us on a thoroughly entertaining and often touching ride through Parr’s family life, his school days in Surrey, his first commercial work for Butlins, his love for steam engines, bad weather and cobblestones, his discovery of flash in daylight on New Brighton Beach and, of course, his subsequent coming alive in colour. The book is a reminder – if you needed one – that photography is the air Parr breathes.
Ahead of the book’s release, Martin Parr spoke about his favourite TV shows growing up, camera rolls, queues and his first great shot.
Alessandro Merola: I guess we have to start with the title.
Martin Parr: It’s one of the classic phrases in my school report. I took it home and my mother tore it up in front of me, so I had to cellotape it back together. And here it is 50 years later, coming into its own.
AM: Did your teacher have a point?
MP: There’s no question about it. My French teacher is probably no longer around, but I’d love to show him what came of his report.
AM: What was your experience at school like?
MP: I scraped my 11 plus exams, which no one expected. I was never top of the class, and didn’t have the great friends I ended up making in college, so I was glad to say goodbye to school. Plus, suburbia was very boring. When I went to visit Manchester or my grandfather in Yorkshire, everything felt more exciting. I couldn’t leave quick enough. That’s suburbia for you … A place to leave!
AM: You recollect your time at Manchester Polytechnic, where you shared a room with a guy called Ray, with whom you’d watch Monty Python every week. Tell me about your discovery of British comedy.
MP: It was by far our biggest TV appointment of the week. I also remember watching a programme called That Was the Week That Was, which had people like Tom Lehrer on, who I absolutely loved. He was a maths tutor from Harvard and wrote these very cutting, satirical songs. I really took to them, and remember buying his song book. He actually passed away a few weeks ago. I also loved comedians like Tony Hancock and sitcoms like Steptoe and Son. It was a great time for comedy on TV, and I lapped it up. If you go out into the world and look around, it’s very funny. I find it funny, even if you don’t! I just point it out in my photographs, and that’s why some of them are funny. I don’t understand why more photographs of the UK aren’t funny.
AM: One of the most hilarious photographs in the book for me is of the parishioner getting a telling off by a priest in sunglasses.
MP: That was one of the first photographs I took that I can look back at and say that was a pretty good shot. The grassy divide between the priest and the guy getting told off is very distinctive.
AM: Another that made me chuckle was the AA road sign, which advertises a Martin Parr exhibition, taken in the late 80s when you were becoming more well known.
MP: I couldn’t believe it. It was actually my friend who spotted this and took the picture. It was the first time, and in fact the last time, I’ve been on an AA road sign. People obviously buy them as a form of advertising. It’s not the AA trying to help people find their destinations, but trying to get their money!
AM: The book is a record of your life but also of the times, from Thatcher and steam engines to selfies and Coronavirus. What would you say is the biggest development that has happened in your lifetime?
MP: The smartphone. When you walk down the street, everybody is looking at their phones. We’ve definitely become less sociable.
AM: On the plus side, do you not think – as someone who’s been a great champion of the ordinary – that there’s more ‘ordinariness’ around now thanks to phones and social media?
MP: I think you’re right. People photograph anything and everything now. You see thousands of pictures being taken every day and you wonder what happens to them. Do they get deleted? Do people download them and print them out? I suspect not. You’re two clicks away from losing everything, which feels pretty dangerous. Even I look back at my camera roll from time to time, and if I take six pictures of one thing, I’ll delete five and keep the best one.
AM: Do you think we’d be able to recognise a Martin Parr camera roll?
MP: I think so. It’s full of the kinds of things I’m interested in. It’s just that I wasn’t properly shooting, but just passing by. Whether I’m holding a phone or a camera, I’m motivated by the power of documentary to record the times we’re in. I’m taking pictures for people to look back on when I’m dead and gone, basically. That’s something I always bear in mind.
“I’m naturally nosy, and being nosy and being a photographer is a very good combination” – Martin Parr
AM: Tell me about your interest in queues. There’s a great shot in the book from the Henley Regatta, where VIPs are queuing up for afternoon tea in the rain.
MP: Queues are something we’re very good at in the UK. We’re very disciplined. When I’m in a queue and someone pushes in front of me, I will say … well, something! I’m rather lucky now with the trolley I push around nowadays, because people offer me the head of the queue. I’ve photographed a few queues this summer. There’s something amusing about seeing people get into line. Queues were, of course, very different during the Coronavirus pandemic because people were distanced, wearing masks and all nervous-looking, but now we’ve returned to how it used to be. We’ll queue up for anything. If you see a long queue outside a restaurant, you’re tempted to join it because you know the food must be good. It’s a very good form of advertising. Maybe these companies employ 20 people to just stand around to get customers in.
AM: What is it about bad weather that you love?
MP: People do the strangest things. They either have umbrellas, which are visually striking, or those funny old plastic macs. I love it when I’m at a tourist resort and the heavens open, because they bring out those macs that cost £5 and fall apart. So long as I have my own protection worked out, I’m very happy when it rains.
AM: How has it been adapting to your disability?
MP: I can’t leap around like I used to, and going on country walks is more difficult too. But to be honest, I’ve probably taken more photographs this summer than I have any summer. I’m realising I haven’t got many years ahead of me, so I’m shooting away very enthusiastically.
AM: What’s the secret to staying curious?
MP: I’m naturally nosy, and being nosy and being a photographer is a very good combination. It gives me the excuse to go anywhere and take photographs. I’ve used that my whole life to take me to places I think are interesting.
AM: What was the last great photograph you missed?
MP: Well, I’m always missing photographs! The thing with photography is that you have to be there before it happens, and by the time you get your camera out, the moment has gone. I’m very susceptible to things having passed. I wish I had a camera in my eye. In 20 years’ time, you’ll probably be able to do that. I could just blink, or wink.
Utterly Lazy and Inattentive by Martin Parr and Wendy Jones is published by Penguin and is out now.
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Lead ImageThe Last Resort, New Brighton, EnglandPhotography by Martin Parr
No one knows us Brits better than Martin Parr. He really sees us, for better or for worse. Baked beans on toast, Sunday cricket, fish and chip shops, Carnival parades, Jubilee parties, bog-snorkellers and seaside resorts have all comprised “Parr land”, an ongoing tapestry of the island nation that has made Parr a name that is synonymous with Britishness itself.
The tables have turned this year with Parr becoming the subject, first in Lee Shulman’s documentary I Am Martin Parr, and now in his own autobiography, billed on his website as one “like no other”. For Utterly Lazy and Inattentive, the photographer teamed up with friend and writer Wendy Jones, who, over many interviews, put onto paper Parr’s stories about the 150 photographs he hand-selected for the book. They take us on a thoroughly entertaining and often touching ride through Parr’s family life, his school days in Surrey, his first commercial work for Butlins, his love for steam engines, bad weather and cobblestones, his discovery of flash in daylight on New Brighton Beach and, of course, his subsequent coming alive in colour. The book is a reminder – if you needed one – that photography is the air Parr breathes.
Ahead of the book’s release, Martin Parr spoke about his favourite TV shows growing up, camera rolls, queues and his first great shot.
Alessandro Merola: I guess we have to start with the title.
Martin Parr: It’s one of the classic phrases in my school report. I took it home and my mother tore it up in front of me, so I had to cellotape it back together. And here it is 50 years later, coming into its own.
AM: Did your teacher have a point?
MP: There’s no question about it. My French teacher is probably no longer around, but I’d love to show him what came of his report.
AM: What was your experience at school like?
MP: I scraped my 11 plus exams, which no one expected. I was never top of the class, and didn’t have the great friends I ended up making in college, so I was glad to say goodbye to school. Plus, suburbia was very boring. When I went to visit Manchester or my grandfather in Yorkshire, everything felt more exciting. I couldn’t leave quick enough. That’s suburbia for you … A place to leave!
AM: You recollect your time at Manchester Polytechnic, where you shared a room with a guy called Ray, with whom you’d watch Monty Python every week. Tell me about your discovery of British comedy.
MP: It was by far our biggest TV appointment of the week. I also remember watching a programme called That Was the Week That Was, which had people like Tom Lehrer on, who I absolutely loved. He was a maths tutor from Harvard and wrote these very cutting, satirical songs. I really took to them, and remember buying his song book. He actually passed away a few weeks ago. I also loved comedians like Tony Hancock and sitcoms like Steptoe and Son. It was a great time for comedy on TV, and I lapped it up. If you go out into the world and look around, it’s very funny. I find it funny, even if you don’t! I just point it out in my photographs, and that’s why some of them are funny. I don’t understand why more photographs of the UK aren’t funny.
AM: One of the most hilarious photographs in the book for me is of the parishioner getting a telling off by a priest in sunglasses.
MP: That was one of the first photographs I took that I can look back at and say that was a pretty good shot. The grassy divide between the priest and the guy getting told off is very distinctive.
AM: Another that made me chuckle was the AA road sign, which advertises a Martin Parr exhibition, taken in the late 80s when you were becoming more well known.
MP: I couldn’t believe it. It was actually my friend who spotted this and took the picture. It was the first time, and in fact the last time, I’ve been on an AA road sign. People obviously buy them as a form of advertising. It’s not the AA trying to help people find their destinations, but trying to get their money!
AM: The book is a record of your life but also of the times, from Thatcher and steam engines to selfies and Coronavirus. What would you say is the biggest development that has happened in your lifetime?
MP: The smartphone. When you walk down the street, everybody is looking at their phones. We’ve definitely become less sociable.
AM: On the plus side, do you not think – as someone who’s been a great champion of the ordinary – that there’s more ‘ordinariness’ around now thanks to phones and social media?
MP: I think you’re right. People photograph anything and everything now. You see thousands of pictures being taken every day and you wonder what happens to them. Do they get deleted? Do people download them and print them out? I suspect not. You’re two clicks away from losing everything, which feels pretty dangerous. Even I look back at my camera roll from time to time, and if I take six pictures of one thing, I’ll delete five and keep the best one.
AM: Do you think we’d be able to recognise a Martin Parr camera roll?
MP: I think so. It’s full of the kinds of things I’m interested in. It’s just that I wasn’t properly shooting, but just passing by. Whether I’m holding a phone or a camera, I’m motivated by the power of documentary to record the times we’re in. I’m taking pictures for people to look back on when I’m dead and gone, basically. That’s something I always bear in mind.
“I’m naturally nosy, and being nosy and being a photographer is a very good combination” – Martin Parr
AM: Tell me about your interest in queues. There’s a great shot in the book from the Henley Regatta, where VIPs are queuing up for afternoon tea in the rain.
MP: Queues are something we’re very good at in the UK. We’re very disciplined. When I’m in a queue and someone pushes in front of me, I will say … well, something! I’m rather lucky now with the trolley I push around nowadays, because people offer me the head of the queue. I’ve photographed a few queues this summer. There’s something amusing about seeing people get into line. Queues were, of course, very different during the Coronavirus pandemic because people were distanced, wearing masks and all nervous-looking, but now we’ve returned to how it used to be. We’ll queue up for anything. If you see a long queue outside a restaurant, you’re tempted to join it because you know the food must be good. It’s a very good form of advertising. Maybe these companies employ 20 people to just stand around to get customers in.
AM: What is it about bad weather that you love?
MP: People do the strangest things. They either have umbrellas, which are visually striking, or those funny old plastic macs. I love it when I’m at a tourist resort and the heavens open, because they bring out those macs that cost £5 and fall apart. So long as I have my own protection worked out, I’m very happy when it rains.
AM: How has it been adapting to your disability?
MP: I can’t leap around like I used to, and going on country walks is more difficult too. But to be honest, I’ve probably taken more photographs this summer than I have any summer. I’m realising I haven’t got many years ahead of me, so I’m shooting away very enthusiastically.
AM: What’s the secret to staying curious?
MP: I’m naturally nosy, and being nosy and being a photographer is a very good combination. It gives me the excuse to go anywhere and take photographs. I’ve used that my whole life to take me to places I think are interesting.
AM: What was the last great photograph you missed?
MP: Well, I’m always missing photographs! The thing with photography is that you have to be there before it happens, and by the time you get your camera out, the moment has gone. I’m very susceptible to things having passed. I wish I had a camera in my eye. In 20 years’ time, you’ll probably be able to do that. I could just blink, or wink.
Utterly Lazy and Inattentive by Martin Parr and Wendy Jones is published by Penguin and is out now.
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