Life's a Beach
Martin Parr and his lonoooooog-time obsession with seaside culture
Seaside culture is a root of British vacation and also British street photography. Martin Parr himself written in a introduction to Life's a Beach photobook: if American have a street, British have a seaside. British seasides are the location gems for photographers since 1960s; Tony Ray-Jones, David Hurn, Simon Roberts.
Martin Parr was a bit later in game, he was introduce to the spectacle of beach in 1970' in his college years since his family is bird people that take vacation on a bird-watching forest location. His fascinating on seaside culture rooting since, first he shot with B&W and then shifted to color, a vivid saturated color of 1980' early commercialised color film, which distinct him from photographers before him, and becomes an inspired color scheme for photographers after him.
Why beach? "It’s a no-brainer!" Martin Parr answer this to the Guardian "The beach is where you can be yourself and you get lots of people who haven’t got many clothes on and it’s interesting and there’s all kinds of habits going on.” In the same way that David Hurn once said "People are there (beaches) to enjoy themselves. It’s democratic, it’s inexpensive, and so as a photographer it’s pretty easy to shoot.”
That's because seaside culture is made solely for vacation, to sneak from manners in everyday life and, as both photographers described, 'be themselves'. Those socks and sandals, Fish n' Chips, shirtless reading newspaper, colorful ice cream cart, beach chair, flower printed, funny sunglasses, are products from 1950s beach boom. Public beach and resort town got popular than ever. After war, economic rise, people craving for fun and vacation but traveling abroad was too expensive back then, so two hours ride to sea side was a best vacation for people in every social classes. Seasides gradually solid its culture, expanding from elegant upperclass resort to wider visitors funfair, becoming everyone's place of self-entertaining.
More than habit humour observation, Martin Parr's debut beach photobook, The Last Resort (1986), is also talking about this history part of British Seaside. Photographing seaside town, New Brighton, UK, The Last Resort is applause to working class leisure on the beach. Controversial as 'exploit' in the 80s, The Last Resort aged well like fine wine, the truthfulness of the works is stronger through times.
Not only working class, Martin Parr interested in human habit in any other class and circumstance. From 1980s, Martin Parr explore the numerous technique and numerous concept of tourism, food, social event, landscape, etc and lots of them still contained beach life. “Whenever I’ve adopted a new technique, I usually apply it first to the beach to experiment with what’s possible,” he explained.
His beach photographs around the world got gather into Life's a Beach (2012). Designing the book in pocket-size, editing with humour, and mix photograph with colorful beach pattern excerpt from his shot. Even compare to his 2018 book, Beach Therapy, which claimed to be retrospective but around 50% of photos are wide shot he shoot in 2010s, Life's a Beach is by far the most funny version of Martin Parr's beach.
Funny, intimate, playful - It’ve been 40 years relationship between Martin Parr and a beach. No matter where or when, Martin Parr loves them all. “Across cultures, the beach is that rare public space in which all absurdities and quirky national behaviors can be found.” he said, and as long as human still being human and seaside still exist, Martin Parr surely always around.
