Martin Parr Quotes

64 quotes in 701 categories

• With photography, I like to create a fiction out of reality. I try and do this by taking society's natural prejudice and giving this a…
• Magnum photographers were meant to go out as a crusade ... to places like famine and war and ... I went out and went round…
• If you photograph for a long time, you get to understand such things as body language. I often do not look at people I photograph,…
• I looked around at what my colleagues were doing, and asked myself, 'What relationship has it with what's going on?' I found there was a…
• I go straight in very close to people and I do that because it's the only way you can get the picture. You go right…
• The easy bit is picking up a camera and pointing and shooting. But then you have to decide what it is you’re trying to say…
• You can read a lot about a country by looking at its beaches: across cultures, the beach is that rare public space in which all…
• Color was the palette of commercial photography and snapshot photography.
• My black-and-white work is more of a celebration and the color work became more of a critique of society.
• All photography is propaganda.
• Most of the pictures we consume are propaganda.
• You can't learn passion, either you've got it or you haven't.
• Photography is the simplest thing in the world, but it is incredibly complicated to make it really work.
• Unless it hurts, unless there’s some vulnerability there, I don’t think you’re going to get good photographs.
• You have to take a lot of bad pictures. Dont' be afraid to take bad pictures... You have to take a lot of bad pictures…
• Part of the role of photography is to exaggerate, and that is an aspect that I have to puncture. I do that by showing the…
• Criticism is hypocrisy; society is hypocrisy. I'm a tourist. I'm a consumer. I do the things that I photograph and can be criticized of.
• Filming is always a challenge because I'm not used to it. But I approach it head-on. I'm not technically brilliant, but it's the spirit that…
• I am not as cross about Thatcher now as I was in the '80s. Begrudgingly, I can see that some of her policies helped modernise…
• I avoid Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, and if I need to communicate with someone, I email direct.

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