In New York, you have the street; in the U.K., we have the beach. I end up being like a migrating bird, being attracted to it.
— Martin Parr
In the '70s, in Britain, if you were going to do serious photography, you were obliged to work in black-and-white. Color was the palette of commercial photography and snapshot photography.
The idea of England in decline is very attractive.
When I am in London, all I do is mix with other people in the arts.
When someone says to you, 'Oh, I don't take a good picture,' what they mean is they haven't come to terms with how they look. They take a fine picture, it's just that their image of how they think they look is not in touch with the reality.
Fashion pictures show people looking glamorous. Travel pictures show a place looking at its best, nothing to do with the reality. In the cookery pages, the food always looks amazing, right? Most of the pictures we consume are propaganda.
I think the ordinary is a very under-exploited aspect of our lives because it is so familiar.
Of course, New Brighton is very shabby, very rundown, but people still go there because it's the place where you take kids out on a Sunday.
My black-and-white work is more of a celebration, and the color work became more of a critique of society.
I photograph wealth.
My father was an obsessive bird-watcher. The genes of observation passed down.
If there is any jarring at all in my photographs, it's because we are so used to ingesting pictures of everywhere looking beautiful.
Part of the role of photography is to exaggerate, and that is an aspect that I have to puncture. I do that by showing the world as I really find it.
There are elements of irony in my work, of course.
Criticism is hypocrisy; society is hypocrisy. I'm a tourist. I'm a consumer. I do the things that I photograph and can be criticized of.
Places change all the time, and the type of people who live there change.
I just go out and try to make sense of the world around me.
I don't like being flattered. It doesn't suit my English sensibilities. Remember, we are the great country of understatement.
Photographers never want to talk about the fact that they may well be in decline. It's the greatest taboo subject of all.
If you go to the supermarket and buy a package of food and look at the photo on the front, the food never looks like that inside, does it? That is a fundamental lie we are sold every day.
We live in a homogenized world, where it's hard to get excited when everything is slick and professional. The interesting things are the dull things.
Photography is, by its nature, exploitative. It's whether you use this process with a sense of responsibility or not. I feel that I do so. My conscience is clear.
