Studio Practice: OUGD603 - Photography Book - Martin Parr (Visual Research)

'Mexico', Martin Parr. Designed by Nick Bell and Matt Willey for Aperture (2006).

On a trip to Mexico, Parr was struck by the clear impact of America's pop culture on Mexican life - the juxtaposition of Mickey Mouse with brightly coloured saints, Nike logos with Day of the Dead skulls, and Coca Cola with cacti. 'Mexico' presents his journey into and beyond the country's cliches, and a darker underlying theme emerges - as in much of his later work - of the corruption of authentic cultural forms by global consumer culture.

https://aperture.org/shop/martin-parr-mexico/

- In the use of layout, the photographs have been formatted as full page images, creating a juxtaposition between the two images on a spread to help communicate the themes of his 'Mexico' photographic series. However, occasionally this is broken up by the use of one image per spread, allowing a break in the narrative of the book for the reader to reflect on what they have just viewed. Both of these layout techniques allows the reader to really engage with the content and this is something I shall experiment with in the production of my photography book in using the context of the photographs to create an interesting and juxtaposed layout rhythm.

Image from: Bhaskaran, L. (2006) What Is Publication Design? Rotovision: Hove, Sussex.

Image from: https://aperture.org/shop/martin-parr-mexico/

'Return to Manchester', Martin Parr (2018).

Parr began his career in Manchester, studying at Manchester Polytechnic from 1970-73. The city, being so different from his childhood home in suburban Surrey, the city of Manchester sparked his curiosity about people's lives, what it is to live in a Northern, largely working class, and diverse city. He has visited the city many times since then and built a large archive of images taken in the city of Manchester. These archive images are included together with images made for a new commission from Manchester Art Gallery to create a portrait of the city and its people in 2018. The exhibition aims to show how the lives of Mancunians have changed, but also how there is continuity in how we live.

https://www.martinparr.com/books/#gallery/8__1142039281/1949
http://manchesterartgallery.org/exhibitions-and-events/exhibition/martin-parr/

- In the layout of this book, there continuous to be a rhythm that has been set in order to inform this layout, in some cases, this time formatting more than one image per page to create a specific narrative. Although the overall theme of the book is specific, the photographs vary in content and the layout of this book effectively organises these photographs into different sections in order to effectively convey these different themes within the broader theme. For instance, his spread featuring photographs of people holding umbrellas out in the rain, and those taken in a hair salon. This has also been done by organising photographs by colour, for instance separating the black and white photographs from the colour ones. These design ideas allow different narratives to be effectively communicated on each spread, and this is something that shall be considered in the production of my own book.