In ordinary life, not too many bright moments.
Martin Parr — one of the world’s most renowned British photographers of his generation. The work of Parra is able to convey the stark reality of society, its ordinariness and mediocrity.
In the documentary footage called “the Last resort” (The Last Resort) is the first of a series of photographs, which contributed to the success Parra, — captures the moment the rest of the British working class in the once popular resort town of new Brighton 80-ies, which fell into disrepair. The series was made in colour, although at the time was valued at more than black-and-white photograph.
“My parents were birdwatchers, so summer as a child I spent not that cheap resorts. We went to watch the herons and goldfinches. And when my wife got a job in Liverpool, we bought a house about a mile from new Brighton. I was shocked when I discovered the difference. I was attracted to this debris and energy.”
New Brighton — a coastal resort town on the Wirral Peninsula, five miles from Liverpool. The peak of popularity of the resort occurred at the beginning of the last century, when there came the wealthy British. However, in the 1960s, due to tidal changes of the river Mersey almost all the sand was gone, which in turn led to the closure of the ferry service to Liverpool in 1971 and dismantling of the pier in 1978. the Resort fell into disrepair.
Martin Parr studied photography in 1970-1973 years in an Urban University of Manchester.
In 1994, the photographer became a member of Magnum Photos, although against the adoption of his candidacy were many, because I felt the style of his photographs of angry and mocking.
Parr himself says: “I am a real Brit. I think it shows in my pictures. My pictures — this is often a research of its own hypocrisy. I show something in English and laugh at it — but in me it is also full. I take tourists and mock their bourgeois — but I do quite a bourgeois tourist. Another issue is that the British people as a whole are fair and self-ironic. We are able to laugh at yourself. Perhaps that is why I was very few who are offended.”
“In 1982, color photography was just starting to come into Vogue in the UK. Professional photographers at that time were obliged to work in black and white to be taken seriously. But I, not without some hesitation, decided not to return to the black-and-white photography.”
For the images, The Last Resort Parr began to shoot with flash even during the day, although the motives of the project were somewhat different. “Just at this time Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister, recalled the photographer. — She never tired of telling about the greatness of the Kingdom, that I have a lot irritated. I went to a seaside resort near Liverpool, to show how different the typical lifestyle of the British. Dying resort could not be better suited to show the decline and decay of the working class”.
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