Compare and contrast between Tim Davies and Martin Parr

Compare and Contrast Tim Davies and Martin Parr

Recently I have been looking at artist, photographers and crafts people to research for my final major project and I have come across Martin Parr and Tim Davies. I noticed some similarities and differences between their works. 

Martin Parr is a British documentary photographer, photojournalist and a photo book collector. I have been looking closely at his book ‘Boring Postcards’ where he shows off his collection of simplistic photographic postcards. The thing that drew me into this book was the idea of just photographs on all of the pages and how retro the postcards were.

I have also been looking at Tim Davies and his book ‘Between A Rock And A Hard Place Oriel Gelf Glynn Vivian Art Gallery’. In this book you see a range of Davies’s work. Different media, processes and techniques going on but they are all to do with landscapes and architecture. The thing which drew me towards this book was the postcards. The figures in the landscapes, as the use of postcards relate to my final major project.

The first similarity I picked up on was the same media used. Both Martin Parr and Tim Davies use the media of photography in their work. Martin Parr uses photography for the whole of his book on every page there is an image of a certain place with a small sentence of where that photograph was located. Tim Davies is not just a photographer he is and all round artist. Tim Davies however uses photography but just as a starting point. For instance he takes the photograph and cuts and removes parts or he cuts and moves certain parts of the image. To me both of these artists have done this to portray the image in a certain way. Martin Parr is just a photographer. He uses all of these photographs and leaves them untouched as he wants to preserve them in his collection. Some may argue that this might be boring but that is what the whole book is about. A collection is finding something and preserving that in the environment of the same thing. Whereas Tim Davies wants his images to be interesting and he wants to draw in our attention because by seeing change in that photograph I became interested. Like in his postcards he doesn't leave them untouched he takes away space and uses the postcard as a starting point to create a silhouette. I was drawn in because of the mystery of the negative spaces and blank shapes.

The next similarity I found out was the use of postcards. Martin Parr finds and collects postcards then presents them in his book. Tim Davies uses postcards and changes them. Both artists work on a small scale. Not all of Parr’s postcards are the same size but they are all on a small scale. They do gather some interest because of the differences between the postcards. Some are larger than others and some have corrugated edges. In ‘Between A Rock And A Hard Place’ all of Tim Davies work is on a small scale, his postcards, bridges and twisted photographs. By working on a small scale this gathers interest and helps you focus in on detail. Martin Parr sticks to the same scale and shape, rectangular, whereas Tim Davies likes to his work to be any shape he wants but still remain inside that rectangular or square background.

The final similarity is the use of landscape by choosing a postcard it is symbolic of a landscape or destination of where you are. Martin Parr shows us a range of landscapes and destinations in his collection of postcards and Tim Davies shows landscapes in most of his work. His ‘bridges’ give us an insight to a landscape but it shows mostly the functionality of different bridges. In his photographs he shows landscapes in a different way. They are twisted turned to create interest and they add mystery to that landscape. It gives us time to decipher the landscape. And finally in his postcards they symbolise a place but as he as removed figures this could emphasise the landscape more of make you draw more attention to the missing figures. So by choosing landscape both Davies and Parr symbolise a location but they show it in a totally different way. Parr decided to keep it simple and let the postcards do the talking whereas Davies decides to add mystery to all of his given locations. 

By researching these two artists I have found out different processes and materials to use and what works best with what. I have also learnt simplicity of Photographs and how you can add to them more to develop mystery or interest.