April 30th, 2012 by dmb media
Martin Parr’s new book “Up and Down Peachtree: Photos of Atlanta” is now available as a pre order from Amazon here:
See more of Martin’s work here: http://dmbmedia.co.uk/artists/martin-parr/photography/
April 23rd, 2012 by dmb media
April 12th, 2012 by dmb media
Martin Parr takes a look at Finnishness
Laboratory’s constantly evolving exhibition programme features work by both Finnish and international artists. The opening exhibition is British photographer Martin Parr’s eye-opening Think of Finland (February 10 – April 8, 2012).
Parr’s exhibition presents a never-before-seen body of work from the internationally renowned photographer and member of the Magnum Photos agency. In August 2011 Parr travelled between Helsinki in the south and Oulu in the north, capturing images of Finns and the Finnish way of life. The photographs depict Finns without sentimentality but with warmth and tenderness.
“I have long been fascinated by Finland, since I was Professor of Photography at the University of Art and Design in Helsinki in the early 90s, so how good to have this chance to return with my camera and create a new body of work,” Parr says. “The Finns are a delightfully quirky people, so I wanted to show this and also the tension between tradition and modernity.”
A making of film on Martin Parr’s journey across Finland will be screened at the gallery during the exhibition.
See more here: http://www.laboratory.fi/2012/01/think-of-finland-landed-in-finland/
View More of Martin’s work here: http://dmbmedia.co.uk/artists/martin-parr/photography/
March 13th, 2012 by dmb media
The Facebook Problem
“I am in Helmond, in southern Holland shooting photos of the Carnival for the Museum here, as part of a show later this year.
Carnival, by nature means lots of parties and of course copious drinking. The more drink is taken, the bigger the “Facebook Problem” becomes. You walk into a crowded bar or party, lift your camera and everyone in front of you starts posing and smiling, producing the kind of image in the past associated with the social pages in magazines, but now the stock that fills up Facebook. I sometimes take great delight in telling people that I have no interest in photographing them. This is not quite true, as I would not have halted in front of them had I not seen something that caught my eye. Sometimes people get quite angry at this rejection, although the image is unlikely to disappear, as they have probably been photographed many times already that night on countless mobile phones. The problem is made worse when fancy dress is involved, as this means you have to be recorded even more than for a normal party. Carnival in Holland is fancy dress plus.
This problem gets worse when people are younger, for once you get into middle age the backdrop activity of constantly shooting everyone, everywhere diminishes. Young people need to fill their Facebook pages with ever more photos of them having a good time, with virtually everybody they know.
So what can you do to get round this? You can try waiting until people lose interest or you could shoot the picture, just to delete it later. Sometimes I even try and explain I don’t want posing. It is funny that often no-one ever asks how they can access the photos. The ritual is complete; they have been recognised as officially having a good time. Not having everyone looking at you in these situations is a major achievement.
Every month something like 6 billion photos are loaded onto Facebook. If you glance through some of these, the majority
fit into the same pattern. Last New Year’s Eve, 750 million photos were posted in one night alone. Why do we need all these photos? Is it the inherent insecurity we all have? Can you imagine, for example visiting somewhere like a tourist honeypot without this being recorded? Not all aspects of the Facebook trend are entirely negative: with the explosion of phones with cameras and photo sharing sites like Flikr the interest in photography is growing. It is, after all, the greatest democratic art form of our time. In past times people collected autographs, souvenirs, or perhaps programmes. Now the only currency is a yet another smiling photo.” Martin Parr
See more of Martin’s work here: http://dmbmedia.co.uk/artists/martin-parr/photography/
January 23rd, 2012 by dmb media
Photographer and collector Martin Parr’s ‘painted photographs’, found in flea markets and second-hand shops, are press prints and publicity shots of actors, musicians and sports stars from the post-war decades. The images have been ‘painted’ by newspapers or magazines to improve their reproduction or indicate areas for cropping. Exhibited for the first time, these pictures of stars such as Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, John and Yoko show us how images of celebrities were refined and manipulated in a time before Photoshop.
On at the Openeye Gallery from 13th January until 18th March 2012, see more here: http://www.openeye.org.uk/archive-exhibition/martin-parr-painted-photographs/
See more of Martin’s work here: http://dmbmedia.co.uk/artists/martin-parr/photography/
