I Am Martin Parr (2025)15 Images
Few photographers have held up a mirror to British society with as much wit, sharpness, and unflinching honesty as Martin Parr. Born in 1952, Parr has been obsessed with taking photographs since he was young boy. “I think that’s one of the things I learned about Martin: there’s no off button with him,” says Lee Shulman, visual artist, founder of The Anonymous Project and director of I Am Martin Parr, explains, speaking ahead of the film’s release. “I think he’s a photographer, an artist, from the moment he wakes up till he goes to bed. There’s no stopping him.”
As I Am Martin Parr highlights, Parr’s work occupies a unique space between documentary and satire, capturing the full spectrum of British life – from seaside holidays and corporate banquets to high-society gatherings and mass tourism – always with a fascination for how people feel, interact and present themselves in different settings. His images are instantly recognisable for their bright and bold colours, meticulous composition, and often humorous social observations, which are reflected in the film.
In the following guide, we delve deep into Parr’s themes of consumer culture, class, national identity, and the absurdities of human behaviour from his decades-long career, putting the artist in front of the lens.
There’s something inherently playful about Martin Parr’s work, even when he’s dissecting the absurdities of modern life with surgical precision. He has an eye for the ridiculous, capturing moments of human behaviour that are so familiar yet so strikingly odd when frozen in time. Whether it’s an image of a melting ice cream dripping onto a sunburnt hand, a pensioner snoozing on a luridly patterned deckchair, or the exaggerated expressions of British holidaymakers clinging onto their sandwiches as seagulls circle above. His photographs are never cruel, but they do invite us to laugh at ourselves and see our own consumerist habits, our love of tacky souvenirs, and our endless attempts to curate the perfect leisure moment from a new perspective.
Martin Parr is a quintessentially British photographer, not just in nationality but in subject matter. Few have captured the eccentricities of British life with such unrelenting curiosity. “On television, we usually see a more beautiful, romanticised version of the UK, which isn’t the reality,” Shulman agrees. “Martin showed what the reality was.” Parr’s photography series The Last Resort (1983–85) immortalised working-class seaside holidays in New Brighton with a mix of affection and brutal honesty.
Think of England (2000) saw him roam the country, photographing everything from village fêtes to bingo halls to tea-drinking pensioners in floral wallpapered rooms. His images reveal a country at once proud and nostalgic, clinging to traditions that, under his lens, appear both endearing and surreal. Both Parr and Shulman are outspoken about their love-hate relationship with Britain, particularly in a post-Brexit world, as Shulman explains to me: “We all love Martin’s photos, there are deeper sociological and political ideas behind them. I wanted to emphasise that balance between humour, comedy, and tragedy in his work in the film.”
Parr’s early work was in black and white, but it was his transition to colour photography in the 1980s that defined his iconic style. He embraced the garish, the saturated, the synthetic, creating compositions that are packed with clashing tones. He captures hot pinks and neon greens, lurid yellows and deep blues, often making the ordinary appear hyperreal. Parr was heavily influenced by American colour photographers like William Eggleston and Stephen Shore, but he took their creative impulse further, amplifying the brashness of consumer culture in a way that was uniquely his own. “I thought it would be great to film it like it was Martin inside his own photograph,” Shulman speaks about how the film is equally as bold and bright as Parr’s photography. “That was my concept – the film should feel like a Martin Parr photograph throughout. He would be inside his own photos.”
“All I do is photograph ordinary things,” Parr told Dazed in the Spring 2016 issue. “What we forget is that when you look back at those times and it feels quite dated, [that] it’s one of the things that documentary photography always does,” Parr continued. “It becomes more valuable as it gets older.”
While often described as a documentary photographer, Parr’s images are so full of irony and exaggeration that they sometimes border on satire. He doesn’t just document reality; he heightens it, exaggerates it, and frames it in ways that make us question what we’re seeing. Is it a critique? Is it a celebration, or both? His work forces us to confront our own biases. Why do we laugh at one image but feel uneasy at another? The line between documentary and artifice in Parr’s work is always blurred.
Where some photographers chase high drama, Parr finds fascination in the quotidian, photographing the butcher’s shop, queues, shopping trips, picnics, and cheap souvenirs. He elevates the ordinary, making it extraordinary through his framing and use of colour… women’s hands covered in gold rings, clutching a supermarket trolley or a paint bucket; a close-up of greasy chips in a Styrofoam tray; a couple sitting in silence, staring into space while their dog rests between them. In Parr’s world, the everyday is rich with detail, humour, and melancholy.
Few photographers have documented food with as much relish as Martin Parr. But forget gourmet meals and meticulously plated Michelin-starred dishes. Parr is more interested in the ordinary, unglamorous side of eating. Sloppy hot dogs at an American fairground, clotted cream oozing onto a scone, greasy spoon fry-ups, cream teas, pink wafer biscuits on a paper plate. His images highlight the sheer variety of what and how we eat, often playing with cultural clichés and nostalgia.
Though often associated with British culture, Parr has spent much of his career exploring how globalisation has transformed societies across the world. His project Small World (1995) turned his lens on mass tourism, documenting how popular destinations, from the Eiffel Tower to the Pyramids, have become swamped by selfie-taking and souvenir-buying hordes. His images reveal the homogenisation of travel, where the same fast-food chains, the same tour groups and fluorescent plastic ponchos appear again and again, regardless of the location.
There is an undeniable wit to Parr’s photography, and his charming sense of humour naturally comes across in the film. Parr’s work is full of visual puns and ironies. Whether it’s a woman matching her outfit perfectly to the plastic shopping bag she’s holding, or an impeccably timed shot of a dog looking unimpressed at a royal celebration. His humour is sharp and quick, sometimes borderline cruel, but always underpinned by a deep fascination with people and their idiosyncrasies. Shulman emphasises this in I AM MARTIN PARR through the audiovisual accompaniments to the film. “One of my conditions for doing this film was it started with the Clash and ended with Madness. The composer I worked with in the film understood that the music wouldn’t just be background; it would be the Martin Parr soundtrack.”
Parr has been one of the most influential photographers of his time, not just in style but in how he’s reshaped our understanding of documentary photography. His approach to colour, irony, and attention to detail has been widely imitated. “His work has inspired me since I was a student,” Shulman says. Parr was not only an influence on his contemporaries – including the great Tom Wood – also a major influence on later generations of photographers interested in consumer culture and the absurdities of modern life, such as Rosie Marks, Daniel Arnold and Charlie Kwai to name but a few. In 1994, he became a full member of Magnum Photos. As the film shows, his inclusion was controversial at the time, but it signalled a shift in the agency’s approach to contemporary photography.
One of the biggest debates around Parr’s work is whether he’s mocking his subjects. Some critics accuse him of condescension, as it could be interpreted that Parr is using working-class and middle-class life as a spectacle for the elite visitors to art galleries to sneer at. Others argue that he is simply an observer, holding up a mirror to society. “There’s a bunch of snobby people running the art world who think humour has no place in art, which I don’t agree with,” Shulman contests. “Humour is the most important way of getting across a serious message. There’s nothing more serious than comedy.” Parr himself has always been vague on the matter. “I am part of the problem,” he once said, acknowledging that he is both documenting consumerism and complicit in it. The discomfort his images sometimes provoke is precisely what makes them so compelling.
Parr is drawn to kitsch in all its forms. From novelty mugs, tacky souvenirs, flamboyant wallpaper and over-the-top outfits, he captures the small, often ridiculous details that reveal so much about class, taste, and aspiration. His images are filled with Union Jack paraphernalia, tourist trinkets, flamboyant fashion choices, and the kind of home décor that seems frozen in time. Through his lens, kitsch isn’t just amusing; it’s deeply revealing.
Parr’s impact on photography is undeniable. His work has been exhibited in major institutions worldwide, and he’s published over 100 books. He has shaped the way we see contemporary documentary photography, pushing the boundaries of what it can be. Whether you see his work as affectionate or critical, insightful or exploitative, there’s no denying that he has changed how we look at the world around us. And perhaps, more importantly, how we look at ourselves.
Few photographers have chronicled British identity with the same relentless scrutiny as Martin Parr. His work unpicks the quirks, contradictions, and absurdities of national life, from seaside holidays, tea-drinking rituals, overstuffed sandwiches, and the self-conscious performance of class. But while his images often provoke discomfort, they are never entirely cruel. He captures both the resilience and the ridiculousness of Britain, particularly in a post-Brexit landscape where national identity feels ever more contested.
“People are very strange,” Parr told Dazed in a 2019 interview. “My job as a photographer is to capture this strangeness.” He is an obsessive observer with an uncanny ability to pick out the tiniest details that reveal larger truths about society. Whether it’s the faded signage of a struggling seaside town, the glistening oil on a full English breakfast, or the distracted expressions of tourists snapping seles, every element in his images is a deliberate commentary. His eye is drawn to the surreal in the everyday, the overlooked details that expose deeper narratives about consumption, excess, and social change.
“Britain is a crazy place. It’s an island of contradictions. And that’s what Martin captures: the contradictions of the world. There’s nothing more contradictory than the UK,” Shulman tells us. The Britain that Parr once documented with affectionate irony has changed irrevocably in the wake of Brexit. His images, once seen as playful exaggerations of British life, now take on a more melancholic tone. The nostalgia that many of his subjects embrace with Union Jack bunting, wartime reenactments, fish and chips wrapped in fake newspaper, feels more like desperate clinging than celebratory pride. Parr’s photography, while never explicitly political, offers a visual chronicle of a nation divided, grappling with its own identity and anxieties. In 2019, Parr spoke with Dazed about his love-hate relationship with Britain: “I love the traditions, but I dislike the bigotry. The motivation that made people want to leave the EU.”
Parr’s world is one of quirks. From outlandish hats at the races, sunburnt bodies on Brighton Beach, pensioners in matching his-and-hers tracksuits. His images revel in the peculiarities of human behaviour, often exaggerating them with his use of saturated colours and tight cropping. This keen eye for the eccentric has led some to see his work as comedic, but there’s always an underlying sense of social commentary beneath the humour.
Parr has a life-long obsession with collecting. He has a personal archive of over 12,000 photobooks, all from different eras and styles. The collection is one of the most significant in the world, and makes Parr an important figurehead in maintaining a record of how society, art, fashion, consumer habits and leisure have changed throughout the decades. It all started in the 1970s, when Parr was a young student and he bought a copy of Robert Frank’s The Americans. In I Am Martin Parr, he speaks about the longevity of a photo book, which he favours over exhibitions which are fleeting and time-pressured. For Parr, the photobook is essential to the gallery exhibition, and an art form in its own right.
No other photographer has documented Britain’s class system with the same mixture of fascination and detachment as Martin Parr. His lens captures both working-class holidaymakers and the upper echelons of British aristocracy, highlighting their rituals, indulgences, and foibles. His Signs of the Times series (1991) examined the aspirations of the British middle class through their home décor, while The Cost of Living (1989) dissected the yuppie culture of Thatcher’s Britain. Whether it’s champagne flutes at a polo match or plastic pint glasses at a caravan park, Parr presents class as a performance. One that is both deeply ingrained and strangely theatrical.
Parr is fascinated by tourism: how people experience place, how they document their own travels, and how reality often fails to meet expectations. His Small World series (1995) captures tourists in all their sunburnt glory, often emphasising the absurdity of their surroundings. From the overcrowded beaches of Benidorm to the garish souvenir shops of Paris, his images highlight the strange rituals of modern travel, where authenticity is often lost in the pursuit of the perfect photo.
Parr’s work makes people uncomfortable because it holds up a mirror to the world without flattery. His images expose greed, superficiality, and the absurdity of social conventions, often in ways that viewers don’t want to see. This discomfort is precisely why his work is important: his work forces us to confront aspects of our culture that we might prefer to ignore.
There’s no denying Parr’s impact on photography. He has reshaped documentary photography, blurring the line between art and social commentary. His influence extends beyond galleries and books as his aesthetic has seeped into fashion, advertising, and pop culture, proving that his vision of the world is one that resonates far beyond the art world.
“I’ve been lucky in my own photographic career, so I’ve had some money I can feedback in and support my colleagues – who I think are very good – and at the same time build up a collection,” Parr told Dazed in 2017, talking about the establishment of the Martin Parr Foundation. The Foundation is intended to preserve and celebrate British photography. “I hope it’ll be a place where people can take photography seriously,” he said. “A place where people come and share the things that I’ve discovered and have an opportunity to enjoy them. That’s my hope.”
Despite his focus on Britishness, Parr’s work does not indulge in nationalism or xenophobia. If anything, his images undermine the idea of an insular Britain by revealing the ways in which British life is shaped by global influences. His work is both hyper-local and universal, showing that the absurdities of consumerism, social aspiration, and tourism are not uniquely British but part of a global phenomenon. As Shulman explains, “I’ve lived in Paris for 23 years now, and I have a love-hate relationship with the UK. But this film reconciled me with it. Going back to Britain, visiting all these places, seeing how they’ve changed – the diversity, the mix of people – it made me fall in love with the UK again.”
There’s often a sense of faded grandeur in Parr’s work. From peeling wallpaper, outdated fashions, and relics of the past still stubbornly clinging on. Whether it’s the slightly grubby doilies of a traditional tea shop or the sun-bleached deckchairs of a seaside resort, his images capture a world that is constantly in transition, where the past lingers uneasily in the present.
One of Parr’s signature techniques is the extreme close-up. Whether it is a plate of half-eaten food, a lipstick-smudged wine glass, or the leathery skin of a sunbather, these details are often more revealing than a wide-angle shot. Zooming in allows the image to expose textures, habits, and contradictions that might otherwise go unnoticed. His ability to zoom in on the minutiae of life is what makes his work so powerful. It forces us to see the world dierently, to notice the things we usually overlook.
I Am Martin Parr is released in the UK and Ireland by Dogwoof. See here for up-to-date release information, screenings, and events.
