Thursday, December 4, 2003
BBC1 did a full feature last night on Martin Parr, now an internationally famous photographer. From 1974 to 1979 Martin Parr lived and worked in Hebden Bridge, and was one of the founders of the Albert Street Workshop.
In the programme, Martin described his time in Hebden Bridge and how different the town was then. On a Sunday, the town was dead with not a single shop open. Now Hebden Bridge is teaming with tourists on a Sunday.
The BBC programme Imagine describes Parr as having "a sharply satirical eye and uncanny ability to find the extraordinary in the ordinary.
This snapper of seaside scenes and suburban semis has come a long way since his days as a photographer at Butlins and cycling around the streets of Hebden Bridge.
His retrospective, currently on a world tour of cities as diverse as Madrid, Tokyo and Mexico, demonstrates how unerringly his pictures have captured three decades of quintessentially British life.
Imagine followed Martin Parr with his camera, and at his home, to paint a portrait of this former train spotter, and darling of commercials and media, who remains utterly eccentric.
| Martin Parr's photo of the Society of Henpecked Husbands from the Charlestown History website |
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