Parr's approach to documentary photography is intimate, anthropological and satirical. Macro lenses, ring flash, high-saturation colour film, and since it became an easier format to work in, digital photography, all allow him to put his subjects "under the microscope" in their own environment, giving them space to expose their lives and values in ways that often involve inadvertent humour. For example, to create his book Signs of the Times: A Portrait of the Nation's Tastes. (1992), Parr entered ordinary people's homes and took pictures of the mundane aspects of his hosts' lives, combining the images with quotes from his subjects to bring viewers uncomfortably close to them. The result of Parr's technique has been said to leave viewers with ambiguous emotional reactions, unsure whether to laugh or cry.
On first looking at Parr's work my first thought was "boring", I
just didn't get it. After further research into the man and his work I began to really like his work, how he manages to shoot mundane objects along with real life and make them interesting when produced as a collection of images. He really captures the quirkiness and humour in life. UNlike most photographers he leaves in shadows and objects that most people would edit out, this to me gives a more realistic feel to his photographs.
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