We are so familiar with Parr’s colour work – humorous, wicked, roguish and, above all, funny without being exploitive or cruel – but looking through ‘Martin Parr – Early Works’ (second edition), it is clear how his impeccable style developed over a long period of time. We see how he started to observe how the simplest of things – two men standing looking in different directions – could be not only humorous but represent the culture and time in which they participated. You see how, gradually, his eye develops this strand, still working in black & white, he starts to hone in on what it is he wants to say. He not only sees the people he photographs and their setting, but he sees the patterns they make, the compositions, the caught moment in time that tells a story that has no beginning or end – which makes it all the more intriguing.
A woman sits alone at a table in a pub, on her head a chiffon scarf, tied under her chin and held in place with a hair grip. She is tipping back the last of her drink, with another lined up on the table beside her, her handbag clutched on her knee. Two chairs are drawn back like invisible companions. Is she a lone drinker, or is she having a night out with friends, or her husband? Have they gone home or to the loo, or walked out on her? In the background she is watched by another woman. We will never know her story, but we are drawn into it by that one moment when Parr clicked the shutter.
Read Elizabeth Roberts’ full appraisal of ‘Early Works’ by Martin Parr (second edition) in B+W 302