Martin Parr Quotes

The desire to discover, the desire to move, to capture the flavor, three concepts that describe the art of photography.

It is easy to take a photograph, but it is harder to make a masterpiece in photography than in any other art medium.

Photography appears to be an easy activity; in fact it is a varied and ambiguous process in which the only common denominator among its practitioners is in the instrument.

A camera alone does not make a picture. To make a picture you need a camera, a photographer and above all a subject. It is the subject that determines the interest of the photograph.

And only the photographer himself knows the effect he wants. He should know by instinct, grounded in experience, what subjects are enhanced by hard or soft, light or dark treatment.

The camera's a ballpoint pen, an imbecile; it's not worth anything if you don't have anything to say.

My intention is to make interesting photographs. That's it, in the end. I don't make it up. Let's say it's a world I never made. That's what was there to deal with.

The meaning of quality in photography's best pictures lies written in the language of vision. That language is learned by chance, not system.

I admire photographers who can take much more ordinarily subject matter and make it transcend that ordinariness, so that it becomes something else fresh and new. It opens this doorway. I really admire people who can do that with photography.

Emphasis on technique is justified only so far as it will simplify and clarify the statement of the photographer's concept.

I believe, even when I'm doing my standup or my acting or whatever I'm doing, I believe in painting pictures.

It is the photographer, not the camera, that is the instrument.

I like to feel that all my best photographs had strong personal visions and that a photograph that doesn't have a personal vision or doesn't communicate emotion fails.

Of course I realize that photography is not the technical facility as much as it is the eye, and this decision that one makes for the moment at which you are going to snap, you know.

I always think, 'What does this picture mean? What's the best place to put my camera? Do I have anything extra in the picture, things in the background that will distract? Am I in the basic position that will give the essential things for this picture but not too much?'

Different directors offer you different things, and it's not necessarily the most obvious things.

I always say I make pictures rather than take pictures.

I crave to be able to photograph the way a painter paints - in a loose, expressive way.

I really believe there are things nobody would see if I didn't photograph them.

For me, Picasso was the ultimate man. He taught me that photography is all about how you approach an image: what you do and what you don't do. He inspired me to go beyond what you think is in front of you.

There is often a great disparity between a director's personal style and the movies he makes.

A style is not a matter of camera angles or fancy footwork, it's an expression, an accurate expression of your particular opinion.

A camera teaches you how to see without a camera.

'The Gardener' is more than a marvellous collection of images by a master photographer.

You don't take a photograph, you make it.