Martin Parr is probably the best known contemporary British documentary photographer. During the 1980s Parr was working and living in New Brighton on Merseyside where he shot his work, The Last Resort. Working in New Brighton at the same time was Irish photographer Tom Wood. The different photographic approaches of Parr and Wood are illustrated by quotes from each of them:

I am a documentary photographer, and if I take a good picture in the process, that’s a bonus.

Martin Parr

I’m interested in good photographs, and if they document something, so much the better!

Tom Wood

I think the quotes from Parr and Wood present a false dichotomy, as they seem to imply that you can either be primiarly interested in using photography to document life, without any aesthetic consideration; or photography is all about aesthetics and any documentary intention is completely incidental.

I like to think that I am interested in creating ‘good’ photographs that reaveal something about the subject I am photographing, i.e. the aesthetic and documentary elements of the image are equally important. Whilst I am aware that my success in achieving this is much less than I hope for, as photography is a visual medium, I think that I err more towards Tom Wood’s point of view rather than Martin Parr’s.