Unit 31 - LO1: Martin Parr Photographer research

The genre that Martin Parr's work comes under would be social portage. This means he comments on the social and personal views on the british people. commenting on things like the social ironies of the british people.
The characteristics of Martin Parr's work would be criticisms and humour. It could also be described as unusual perspectives and garish colours. An example of this would be this image.

My initial reaction this picture would be cramped and very honest to what the British seaside is This image portrays the british seaside as more cramp and clustered with the amount of people there. Also the black sand could have been used on purpose to portray it as more of a dirty and darker look to the seaside rather than the stereotypical golden yellow sand. Also the birds eye view could have been used to give a wider perspective of the cramped nature of the seaside, further expressing how the British seaside is not as glamorous as it seems, the use of the birds eye view also shows that everything in the frame is meant to be there. I think the purpose of this photograph is to make us question if this is really the image of the British seaside that you want and is not really what is expected one someone thinks of the seaside.
I believe this photograph belongs to the genre of photojournalism, as it shows a real life event and shows what it is really like in real life. In this case it would be the British seaside and how unglamorous it really is.
The composition of the photograph is used in a wa where all people are captured from a similar angle and size to show how numerous and crowded the beaches are and the use of a birds eye gives the view from another perspective and gives a good view of how cramped it is. Also the black sand highlights the other parts of the photo, the coloured towels and people on the beach themselves.
Some critics who have commented on his work:
The German photographic curator Thomas Weski has said:
"Martin Parr is a chronicler of our age... Leisure, consumption and communication are the concepts that this British photographer has been researching for several decades now on his worldwide travels... Parr enables us to see things that have seemed familiar to us in a completely new way."
Dan Rule, writing in The Age, has said:
"Parr's signature is his ability not only to isolate the most evocative of human details, but to elevate such visual fragments to that of the wider societal signpost or glyph."
Martin Parr focuses on the identity of modern life and the social classes within them through the use of intimate, satirical and anthropological (study of human behaviour) techniques.