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The Last Resort: Photographs of New Brighton

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The next shot in the sequence seems to be around the same area– by the murky water (with everyone sitting on the concrete). You see multiple actions going on– and a nice use of filling the frame by Parr. You have the little boy in the center holding up what looks like a wooden bicycle wheel with a heroic gesture (almost like a Roman statue), the woman with the red shirt and waving hair dipping her child playfully in the water, and the woman in the middle looking over with an exasperated gesture (hand on her face, and elbow slouched over her knees). Once again this image sets the mood of the dystopic feel of this sea-side resort– of it being dirty, unhygienic, and overwhelming.

Martin Parr is one of the best-known documentary photographers of his generation. With over 100 books of his own published, and another 30 edited by Parr, his photographic legacy is already established. Parr established the Martin Parr Foundation in 2017. In 2019 the National Portrait Gallery in London held a major exhibition of Parr’s work titled Only Human. As a documentary photographer, Martin Parr has spent his career attune to the tempo of life in Britain. His interests in consumerism, tourism and class have taken him across the country: to village fetes, boat races, and, of course, the seaside. The photographs comprising The Last Resort were taken between 1983 and 1985, a period of economic decline in northwest England. They depict a seaside resort past its prime with attractions designed to appeal to an economically depressed working class: overcrowded beaches, video arcades, beauty competitions, tea rooms and chip shops. The series was exhibited at the Serpentine Gallery, London and published as a book in 1986, and was instrumental in establishing Parr’s reputation as a photographer. Traditionally, documentary photography in Britain sought to glorify the working class; here Parr shows a warts-and-all picture of a down-at-heel resort populated by day trippers seeking cheap thrills. The series contains many images of people dressed in the day-glo lycra fashions of the time, eating junk food in the crumbling remains of a seaside town.

“A different way of looking”

The leading image is always the most important photo of the book– as it sets the tone for the rest of the book. This image creates a sense of melancholy and loneliness– and that sense that when you are on holiday you are supposed to be having “fun”— whereas this couple obviously don’t seem they are. My parents are bird watchers so, growing up, I didn’t go to trashy seaside resorts,” reveals Parr, “we went more to look at Waders and Goldfinches. But then my wife got a job in Liverpool, and we bought a house about a mile and a half away from New Brighton. When I discovered it, I got very excited; I was attracted to its litter and energy and I knew then that I would do a project about it.” All of the subjects in this shot are well spaced from one another– and I love the vibrancy that the flash brings to the shot– even though it was during the day. Not only that, but the red of the little girl’s shirt makes he pop out and be the main subject in the photograph.

If there is any jarring at all in my photographs, it’s because we are so used to ingesting pictures of everywhere looking beautiful.” Thirty years later, Parr brings a new approach to the same subject: the leisure pursuits of ordinary people. His new commission for the National Maritime Museum was displayed in The Great British Seaside exhibition. Cameras and styles over time Why I love this as a concluding image is that it is such a strong image– and the man walking away from all of it is a great symbol of the viewer leaving the image and thus the book.The scene suggests a futuristic wasteland where families share beach space with industrial machinery, and this, as much as the flourescent colours of the toys, gives it a recognisably 1980s aesthetic: science-fiction films of the period conveyed a sense of post-industrial apocalyptic dread that this image seems to gently satirise. Here the machine is neither aggressive nor benign; it is simply part of the landscape.

I will now try my best to analyze the images in the book — and interpret it according to how I see it. Of course, this isn’t how Martin Parr intended — but I hope these thoughts will be helpful to you. The Last Resort is an unwavering series of photographs that featured the working-class seaside resort of New Brighton, situated in Merseyside, as the primary subject. And, maybe because of this softness, Wood’s images are liked by the people they depict – even when they’re shown out partying and ‘looking for love’ in the Chelsea Reach, then the local nighttime hotspot. His book Looking for Love was in every hairdresser’s in the area, he says, and the only negative comment he got was “remind me not to kiss in public”. When he showed an exhibition called The Pier Head at Open Eye in 2018, 1000 people came to the opening. “They were, like, queueing to get in,” he says. But then again, it might have been a good filler image, as the final image is just so strong. Sometimes having a weaker image next to a really strong image makes that strong image that much stronger.

How does Martin Parr take a photo?

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 up to them. Even now, I don’t find it easy. I don’t announce it. I pretend to be focusing elsewhere. If you take someone’s photograph it is very difficult not to look at them just after. But it’s the one thing that gives the game away. I don’t try and hide what I’m doing – that would be folly.” The primary content of the photograph is a young woman petting a dog, an older man with his hands on his hips looking pleased– and a little girl in red pushing a baby stroller looking curiously over. We are drowning in images. Photography is used as a propaganda tool, which serves to sell products and ideas. I use the same approach to show aspects of reality.” 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 world as I really find it.” In 1987, Parr would move with his wife to Bristol, where he photographed his next project, The Cost of Living, which focused on the middle class as they became wealthier under Thatcher. He captured a variety of middle-class activities including shopping, parties, and events.

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