Photographer Martin Parr On Trump, Tourism, and the Trials Of Modern Living

Martin Parr’s uncompromising portrayal of Britain has made him one of the most recognizable photographers of our lifetime. His images are a stark, satirical and occasionally sad document of daily life,  capturing subject matters such as consumerism, tourism, and conspicuous leisure. Chock full of contrast and contradiction, “Martin Parr” almost registers as it’s own genre. And yet few have been able to unravel the enigma of  the man who’s spent most of his career behind, rather than in front of, the camera.

But a new documentary, I Am Martin Parr, directed by Lee Shulman, takes a worthy stab at it. Released last week via Dogwoof Documentaries, the film tells the story of the 72-year-old photographer’s life in his own words, as well as those of his loved ones and colleagues. And while the film doesn’t render him entirely knowable, it cheerfully captures both the mechanics of his practice and his life nowadays. To mark the release, Parr joined me last week on Zoom, where he struck me as warm, bashful, and impenetrable all at once. On the call, we got to talking about his critics, modern-day Britain, his collection of Saddam Hussein’s watches, and his relationship with America.

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EMILY SANDSTROM: What’s it like to have the tables turned now that you’re the subject?

MARTIN PARR: Because I knew Lee [Shulman] quite well, it wasn’t a problem at all. I’ve had the cameras trail me a few times, so I’m used to it. And I’ve done many photos of myself in this auto-portrait section, which is right at the end. I’m used to that whole process really, so it doesn’t really bother me.

SANDSTROM: Would you say you enjoy it? 

PARR: I suppose. I haven’t done a proper film for a long time, so this is quite nice to have an update and also to see evidence of my trolley and the illness I now have, which means I can’t leap about quite the same way that I used to.

SANDSTROM: Yes. I recently read a headline from the Financial Times that referred to you as ‘”inscrutable.”

PARR: [Laughs] I’ve been called many, many things, including that. I’m used to both good and bad phrases coming up when people mention me.

SANDSTROM: Do you think it’s hard for people to get to know you?

PARR: Not really. I think it’s all pretty obvious to me. I’m photographing everyday things, things that most people experience. If they go on holidays, tourism, consumerism, shopping—I’m just doing what everyone else does.

SANDSTROM: What do you think you would’ve done with your life if you weren’t a photographer?

PARR: I probably would have been a dealer. I like the process of buying and selling. And we do this here to a certain extent because we have a very active bookshop and I go and look for books that I think are very underpriced. It’s satisfying when you find a book that’s underpriced and you can buy it and charge a lot more for it.

SANDSTROM: Are you on eBay?

PARR: Yeah, I’m very much an eBay person. All these mad collections I have all come from eBay. I wish they’d sponsor me, in fact.

SANDSTROM: They really should.

PARR: I think I’ve done more headlines for eBay than any other person, all without being paid.

SANDSTROM: Let’s call them up.

PARR: Let’s hope someone from eBay America is reading this and will knock some sense into eBay UK.

SANDSTROM: I read about your fascination with Saddam Hussein watches.

PARR: [Laughs] Yep.

SANDSTROM: How did that start? And what else are you collecting?

PARR: Well, that was just one of the many collections. I started collecting those around 2000 and in 2004, I did a show and a catalog of them when I was the artistic director of Arles, which is a very big photo festival in France. The oldest collection I got into was Colonel Gaddafi, but there’s not quite as many. Saddam Hussein, he was the biggest. There must be at least 80 or 90 different ones that I have.

SANDSTROM: Wow.

PARR: It’s completely crazy.

SANDSTROM: Do you live like a hoarder or do you have an organized situation?

PARR: No, I’m quite organized and I’m not looking now for Saddam Hussein watches, for example. I’m mainly concentrating on photographic books and prints because we run a foundation here and the purpose of the foundation is to support and to make us a center of research for British photography, particularly documentary work.

SANDSTROM: I was going to ask about your relationship to the BBC and whether you’ve ever had access to the archives.

PARR: Not really, but I’ve done a lot of things for the BBC. I did an hour-long film for them called Think of England, which you can see clips of on my site if you’re interested. And I also did some idents. They’re the logos of the channel.

SANDSTROM: Oh, nice. 

PARR: I did 26 different idents. You can also see them on my site. And so for about three years they ran 15 of these a day, maybe 20. So I was the most seen filmmaker in the whole of the UK. They have them between programs.

SANDSTROM: There’s a point in the documentary where you say you want to show Britain as you find it, rather than a romanticized version of it, or it being bad.

PARR: Yeah.

SANDSTROM: How do you find it in its current moment politically and socially?

PARR: The truth is, my discovery—my act of photography—is very subjective. It comes from me. I have a unique relationship, both good and bad, with the UK, and I’m trying to express those apparent contradictions in the work.

SANDSTROM: How do you feel at this current moment? Obviously, I’m calling in from the States and there’s a very heightened sense of—

PARR: We just look at it with amazement, really. This guy being the president and the things he says. It’s entertaining and depressing at the same time.

SANDSTROM: It is. Do you feel that Britain is in a similar state of disarray since Brexit?

PARR: It is, and everyone knows that Brexit is a total disaster, but the Tories who put it through can’t admit to it. And even Labour, who opposed it, can’t oppose it either because they feel that they would let down their working class voters. But if you see any survey these days, the limitations we have are getting worse and worse. It’s completely insane. And we want growth of course, because growth is going to mean we can spend more money on things like the NHS [National Health Service], but we can’t get that at the moment because of Brexit.

SANDSTROM: Yes.

PARR: That’s a total disaster, basically.

SANDSTROM: Would you describe yourself as an optimist?

PARR: Sort of, yeah. I feel pretty upbeat, but when I think about the planet and the world and our country, I can’t help but get depressed. Net-zero, climate change–impossible. Since COVID, tourism has gone completely mad. More and more people are traveling. There’s no slowdown in places like America or China, who are the big polluters. It’s an impossible mission, really, and everyday you see the evidence. Look at L.A., you had the fires and you had the floods. It’s a total disaster, as you know.

SANDSTROM: I do indeed. In the documentary, you mentioned that leisure time is the main subject of your work. And I’m thinking about how things have shifted now for young people. I feel like in the periods that you were capturing people, there was a greater sense of community and togetherness. 

PARR: Yeah, that’s my main subject. Well, smartphones have a huge impact on society, more so than anything else we’ve had. I’ve done a book on people doing selfies, for example [Death by Selfies]. When I was in New York last year, I photographed in the Tesla garage, which I thought was good because Tesla, love it or hate it, is a dominant, of-the-moment-company.

SANDSTROM: On that note, what’s your relationship to the United State generally?

PARR: I’ve done quite a lot of shooting in America. I have a dealer on the East Coast and the West Coast, so I do sell some prints there. I wouldn’t get a museum show there because they just don’t really show foreign photographers that much in America. They’re too interested internally. But it’s an interesting country, it’s a very nice country to visit. It’s very expensive for us now, especially if you go to New York, where it’s completely crazy. But occasionally I get an invitation and I’ll go. And now it doesn’t even matter because you have the craziest president ever.

SANDSTROM: We do. Does it flood you with fascination, our relationship with consumerism here? I see a lot of mirrors and threads in your work. 

PARR: Yeah. I could certainly do more pictures on consumerism in America. It’s a great topic, although I don’t know whether it’s the same there as it is here, where shops are becoming less important. There’s more and more people just buying stuff online.

SANDSTROM: Yeah. I wonder how you’d document that. I guess that brings us back to eBay.

PARR: No, you can’t really have someone sitting in front of a computer. It’s going to be a bit boring, isn’t it?

SANDSTROM: What’s the worst review you’ve ever gotten, or one of the worst things you’ve read about yourself?

PARR: Well, I had a very negative review of this film and a lot of positive ones. So I’m controversial. I never understand why, really, because what I do is pretty straightforward. And the people who are going to photograph famine and wars, they don’t get the same hassle that I get as a photographer. But I guess in the end, controversy hasn’t done me any harm.

SANDSTROM: That’s a great way to look at it. I guess the very trite conversation about photography and documentation is that photography, without a verbal narrative, is voyeuristic or exploitative or whatever—

PARR: Yeah, there’s a degree of exploitation in all photography, really. I willingly admit that.

SANDSTROM: Well, thank you so much for your time.

PARR: Cheers. Have a good day.