Martin Parr Gets Modern in PDN

If you haven’t read it yet, you must run to PDN online and check out the interview they’ve got up with British photographer Martin Parr, who has an uncanny knack for making a witty image that works both in a fine art and documentary forum. Parr is represented by a little agency called Magnum, and works hard to shoot things that are interesting to him; he’s got some very interesting views on the future of the editorial market.

Here are some choice little quotes from the Q&A with David Walker, and some of Parr’s recent work:

“I don’t regard myself particularly as a photojournalist. I’m a
documentary photographer. The idea of my work is to try put my finger
on the zeitgeist of what’s happening. That’s constantly changing and
shifting. I’m not interested in photographing things that are
disappearing, although I’ve engaged in a slight bit of nostalgia. I’m
interested in things as they are now.”

From a project documenting the ostentatiously wealthy population of the world

“I’ve been doing a set of pictures called Luxury. Wealth to me is as much to me the front line as poverty traditionally was.”

From a new project begun in 2006 documenting the beach culture of South America

“I’m not waiting to be assigned. I go to places I want to go and see
how they fit in. If I wait for the phone to ring, for me to go to the
places I want to go, it’s not going to happen. So I determine where I
want to go, and then try to get the magazines to help.”

From the third Moscow Millionaires Fair in November 2007, shot for Esquire Magazine

“Another story I did last October was about millionaires in Moscow. I
did the Gulf art fair. All these things in the end have been quite
beneficial to me in terms of sales. And they’re constantly adding to my
portfolio of work. It’s a big jigsaw puzzle I’m trying to work out as
we go along about my relationship to the world we live in.”

An editorial fashion shoot for Stiletto Magazine

“It’s a highly competitive market. Clearly one of the things that
potentially distinguishes you is that you have a known voice in
photography.

Picture editors like to commission new, exciting photographers. They’ll
take that risk. Of course, it’s not easy. If it was easy then everybody
would be at it. There are more magazines now than ever before. But they
have to be filled with something. I agree that I’m in a better position
than most. I’m in a very privileged position, and it has taken years
to get there.”