British photographer Martin Parr is known for his varied
documentary projects involving our British culture. I am looking at his recent photograph developed from his black and white images. From watching a documentary
on Martin Parr from "The Genius of Photography" I understand the technical aspects that he uses as
well as his subject matter. I look at his documentary photography on how he
captures traits of our nationality through consumerism and Britishness. The
particular series I will be looking into to interpret is his ‘common sense’
series which he shot both in the UK and abroad portraying global consumerism,
his intention as a documentary photographer is to ‘exploit reality of place
and a mythology of a place.' His photographs give off a pessimistic view on
the world avoiding faces and concentrating more on the subject. I looked into
his photographs of food which are highly saturated, he shot these using a macro
lens and ring flash which bring out the colour and detail of the food as well
as giving a shine to the texture of it making it look less appealing.
To interpret one of Martin Parr's images of food I looked at the two above and others from his series and I decided to go with chips covered in sauce, the reason for this choice in subject matter was because I find it a popular food that my generation in Britain choose to eat when in actual fact the taste and how its made isn't appealing at all therefore I portrayed that in a Martin Parr style. Using a Macro lens and ring flash which highlighted the texture of the sauce and corners of the chips, I then angled the camera slightly over the food with not too much negative space and then saturated the colours in post-production. Next time to improve the image in relation to Martin Parr I angle the camera slightly higher over the food avoiding the backdrop.