Born in Surrey, UK in 1952, Martin Parr studied photography at Manchester Polytechnic in the 70s. Today, he’s considered to be one of Britain’s greatest living photographers known for celebrating the everyday. 

Over the years, Parr has amassed a collection of images from Northern England to the Arab Emirates and Uruguay’s Punta del Este. « I like ordinary people», he said in an interview to The Spectator in a 2016. Waiting for a happy accident to happen, Martin Parr has always been fascinated by the banal and the disappointing. Since 1982, Magnum photographer’s work has been to « exaggerate reality », he explains. Using a ring flash around the lens as a way to remove shadows and objectify his subjects, Martin Parr has been shooting exclusively in colour. 

Colourful sun chairs, buoys, beach ashtrays, summer straw hats, excessive tan lines, wet crowds, red fingernails, overcrowded beaches, mosaics of towels, miniatures of the pope … A few years ago, Martin Parr captured the charm of Southern Italy. Commissioned by Naples’ Studio Trisorio, this series is described as a satire observing global tourism.

Inspired by Bill Brandt and Henri Cartier-Bresson, Parr dedicates his work to the boredom and the awfulness. Not so different from his pictures from the ‘Small World’ series first published in 1995, Parr explores the contrast between the reality and mythology of a tourist honey pot. « I love tourism. It’s my subject. It illustrates the contrast between myth and reality in interesting places. »

Tanned bodies in Sorrento, pastel color boats in Capri and on the Amalfi Coast, no beauty nor elegance, these images catalyse Parr’s work who’s been focusing on photographing tourists for four decades. His 80 books, mostly self-published, gather collections of iconic photographic and video works.

Follow Martin Parr’s work on his website.

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»Inspired by a childhood spent on the beaches of Cornwall building castles, boats and tunnels in the sand, I decided to return to my favourite beach at Caerhays on the south coast of Cornwall to produce a stool using a primitive form of sand-casting. Molten pewter was poured into a sand mould sculpted directly into the beach by hand, and once cooled the sand was dug away to reveal a pewter stool.« Designer Max Lamb creates modern pewter furnitures such as a desk or a stool, cast in sand on a Cornish beach.

What’s pewter? An ancient alloy composed of 92% tin, 6% antinomy and 2% copper able to melt down at 200°C. 30 stainless steel saucepans of molten pewter over gas camping stoves have been used to create metal on the beach. Helped by tudents from the Falmouth University 3D Design department, it took 180kg of pewter and just over an hour for the molten pewter to cool for the desk to be dug out, lifted from the sand, and washed with the nearby seawater.

Years after, Max Lamb decided to return to his favourite beach in Cornwall in order to create a stool directly into the wet sand, mainly using tin with small amounts of copper and other metals. »My Pewter stool was made using a very simple form of sand casting. I chose to use the natural landscape of Caerhays beach on the South coast of Cornwall to make the stool.« says British designer Lamb. »Most of my childhood was spent on this, and other, Cornish beaches building castles, boats and tunnels in the sand, and I decided it would be nice to return to my favourite beach to produce a stool using a process Cornwall was once famous for.« Tin mining was known to be a major industry in Cornwall, becoming an important part of life in the region in the early 19th century. The minor inevitable imperfections and geometric pattern make each piece unique. The stool is definitely linked to the environment where it’s been created proving the seaside to be an important part of the intensive manufacturing process.

Discover more of Max Lamb’s work on his website.

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