I had apparently met world-famous photographer Martin Parr before, when he accompanied his wife Susie to the dovegreyreader tent at Port Eliot back in 2012 where she was going to talk about her wonderful book The Story of Swimming.
'Oh hi...' I probably said, really not registering and before turning my attentions to Susie who was going to try and persuade me of the joys of wild swimming and also demonstrate (on dry land) the Trudgen, a now defunct swimming stroke which I really feel should make a comeback.
Anyway fast forward to Planning Meeting 2014, and would I like to interview Mr Susie this year.
Cathy St Germans placed a copy of Martin and Susie Parr's latest book The Non-Conformists in my hand, a project based around a methodist chapel in Hebden Bridge in the 1970s, and I was sold...except that I really knew absolutely nothing about Martin Parr, and not a great deal more about the art of photography.
Martin Parr has published over a hundred books, many of them on the expensive side, so I felt sure I would hit the mother lode at Devon Libraries. One book, just the one, so I am thankful to Cornwall Libraries who shipped up a pantechnicon-full from the St Ives Art Collection. My homework began... and I was hooked.
It was odd too because in many ways our early life paths had everso slightly tracked each other. I was born a year later than Martin Parr but we had both grown up in neighbouring leafy Surrey suburbs and attended nearby grammar schools. Martin had moved to Hebden Bridge after college and funnily enough I had spent time there too, and at the same time.
Remember the student nurse flatmate who eventually married the stock-broker and moved to Portobello Road??
Well her family lived in Heptonstall, above Hebden Bridge, and before she deserted our Haringey abode we would go there for days off, wuther around on the moors all Bronte-esquely and wander around the town in shawls and Laura Ashley dresses.
Enough said.
Martin arrived at the tent, camera in hand, sat on the sofa and proceeded to take pictures of the audience as we waited for the off..
Now what follows might not be the fairest way to start a conversation with the UK's top social documentary photographer but in the end, having read this, I just couldn't stop myself...
'He has considerable flair in photography and a certain amount of ability in the art field, but there seems to be little chance of him realising his potential if his attitude to his general work continues to be so poor.'
J. Turner - Surbiton Grammar School
'I wish I could understand his temperamental difficulties.'
Head Master - Surbiton Grammar School.
And so with Martin Parr's school report revealed, where did it all go right I wanted to know, and thus we were launched on possibly the speediest forty-five minutes of my entire life as a what felt like a whirlwind conversation began.
So fast I can barely remember what I asked...what I didn't...what Martin Parr replied.
Early influences and projects certainly...
The way his pictures force us to explore and confront our own prejudices and hypocrisies...
Often accused of cyncism verging on cruelty in his gaze, I actually sense prejudice in mine and some fondness in Martin Parr's...
I do remember citing a Very Famous photographer who has a rural retreat down here and there is really no mistaking him if he walks through town, yet Martin Parr looks...well quite ordinary and unrecognised, and is that is part of the plan...
The family photo album as a 'lie'...where are all the pics of the bad times, the screaming children...
What makes a postcard boring...
and at this point I did the awful geeky thing of revealing that I too was the proud owner (from my childhood collection) of the very same Boring Postcard as Martin Parr, one of Crawley Town Centre.
But we agreed that boring is in the gaze of the beholder; postcards of motorways would have been the height of class to the residents of Richard Benson's The Valley. New and innovative, and different the motorway service station was the place to go for a night out and a posh dinner, and immediately our own judgements are revealed.
Photographers hold your gaze, this much I discovered as I kept wondering how I was going to avert mine to choose my next question from The Notebook....
Audience question...
Breath...
Squint at notebook...
Can you explain Autoportrait... a series of pictures taken in photographer's studios around the world. You know, the ones where you stick your head through something that bears no resemblance to you just for a laugh (like a great white shark or something) or stand in front of an unreal backdrop (Waikiki Beach at Southend)
What are the ethics of creeping up behind unsuspecting people and taking their photograph and who does it belong to...
Pictures of children...that can't be legal now...
Do you ever switch off ...
What about this medical camera you use... does it make for a clinical eye.
What about nostalgia and what do you need to be photographing now that in say thirty years time we will look back on and say 'Aaaah bless.'...
Heck, how I wish I could remember all the answers... perhaps some of you who were there can help out.
It all felt like a gallop and one day I promise myself I am going to go and sit in the audience and just listen to Martin Parr talking, without having to ask any questions, because he is utterly fascinating and there is so much more I want to know.
But all too soon it was Knitsuke time...
'Ever used a four ply camera,' I garbled really quickly...
'Woolly logic Martin, surely you've heard of that...'
For the first time he looked a bit confused...even befuddled until he set eyes on his new crocheted camera.
We feel sure he will use nothing else now.
And in his left hand...well how did I have the nerve.
One of the things that happens when you immerse yourself in the photography of Martin Parr is that you start to see the world around you in a similar way... witness the Happy Campers exploits, and a few weeks prior to the festival Bookhound and I had been walking around a garden when I was just gifted a Martin Parr moment.
'Don't...,' whispered Bookhound.
'Martin Parr would,' I said with some glee...
'Don't...' he exclaimed even more urgently once he knew I was going to...
Now I have no idea who they are, and I'm really sorry if it's you, but apparently (so Martin told us) it is entirely legal to take pictures of anything and anyone in public spaces, and think on it, the shrouded couple have gone home with Martin Parr, the nation's most famous social documentary photographer, and in a crocheted frame with doves on at that.
Thank you to Martin Parr for an afternoon I will never forget...
Recent Comments