Martin Parr recently spoke to art critic Alastair Sooke about a number of personal accords he shares with his work and his photographic philosophy. Martin "shows things as he finds them", a true documentary approach that is overarching Parr's retrospective work.
![Martin Parr, New Brighton from The Last Resort , c. 1983-85. CREDIT: MARTIN PARR/MAGNUM PHOTOS](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5309059de4b0695e51417c64/1453599084108-Y1RZ7N2Y3SI1MIJ2B7RI/ke17ZwdGBToddI8pDm48kEzlXDSEt0ADlxwFFU3YdepZw-zPPgdn4jUwVcJE1ZvWEtT5uBSRWt4vQZAgTJucoTqqXjS3CfNDSuuf31e0tVG-RPPs5_ljgq_fP5WAZaN4FxydgxS6TF3JkqZibQLsaiO9bfgv1bxbPiIVIZGp41E/image-asset.jpeg)
Martin Parr, New Brighton from The Last Resort, c. 1983-85. CREDIT: MARTIN PARR/MAGNUM PHOTOS
"As well as running the Martin Parr Foundation, which advances education in the art of photography, he is curating Strange and Familiar: Britain as Revealed by International Photographers, an exhibition that will open at the Barbican in March. By now, I suggest, he must have finessed the formula for taking a quintessential “Parr” photograph. “You are after iconic moments,” he concedes, “but they are very difficult to produce. Most of the pictures I take are not very good. For the rhubarb commission, I took three or four thousand – and ended up with 40. If I knew how to take a great photo, I would stop.
'My job is to record things with integrity, and I can always do that,' he says. 'Whether I take a 'great’ photo is down to luck.'" -Alastair Sooke
![Martin Parr, St Moritz polo world cup on snow from Luxury , 2011. CREDIT: MARTIN PARR](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5309059de4b0695e51417c64/1453599905506-QH91ZQB5TZ4NB7237GZG/ke17ZwdGBToddI8pDm48kEzlXDSEt0ADlxwFFU3YdepZw-zPPgdn4jUwVcJE1ZvWEtT5uBSRWt4vQZAgTJucoTqqXjS3CfNDSuuf31e0tVG-RPPs5_ljgq_fP5WAZaN4FxydgxS6TF3JkqZibQLsaiO9bfgv1bxbPiIVIZGp41E/martin-parr-fur-large_trans%2B%2BqVzuuqpFlyLIwiB6NTmJwViJj1eTvcjzL4JkNP_PJEs.jpg)
Martin Parr, St Moritz polo world cup on snow from Luxury, 2011. CREDIT: MARTIN PARR
Read the entire article on The Telegraph.