One of the reasons why I love Martin Parr’s photography so much is that his photographs have strong statement about society – and always has a certain viewpoint or critique. Many of his photographs are funny, interesting, or sometimes downright depressing- but they make statemetns on society. He interjects his own opinion and thought into his photographs and shows how he sees the world – and challenges us to see the world differently as well.
I have recently started to understand that it isn’t enough to take interesting photographs. Rather, we should strive to take meaningful photographs.
When I refer to “interesting” photographs- I mean photographs that make us say “wow” from a visual standpoint. Photos that have strong lines, shadows, a good composition and so-forth.
However photographs that are “meaningful” make us think more about the situation at hand in the photograph. What is the statement that the photographer is trying to say through his/her photograph? Does it have an opinion? Does the photo have emotion or soul?
I feel that a strong image should be both interesting from a visual standpoint and meaningful from a humanistic standpoint. I feel that Martin Parr does this well with his projects.
One project of interest that he finished is a book titled: “Luxury“. In this book he makes the statement that oftentimes we find things like poverty and AIDS in Africa as serious social problems- but forget the problem of excess wealth is in society. Therefore in that book, he uncovers that social issue that we don’t often think about.
More thoughts on this subject on an article I wrote, “Why Street Photographers Need To Take Themselves More Seriously.”