Lee Shulman Reveals the Extraordinary in the Ordinary in ‘I Am Martin Parr’

When studying abroad in Copenhagen in college, I took a weekend trip to Stockholm, where I stumbled into a Martin Parr exhibition at the FOTOGRAFISKA Museum. I’d never heard of Martin Parr before, but I was immediately taken by his vibrant, highly saturated snapshots of day-to-day mundanity that revealed the beauty in the banal. His humanistic street photography of tourists and beach-goers struck a chord, and I purchased a pocket-sized book of his work in the gift shop.

In a similar fashion, years later, I stumbled upon Lee Shulman’s The Anonymous Project, in which the photographer and filmmaker collects and curates Kodachrome slides from around the world from over the last 70 years to preserve, archive, share and create new stories. As with Parr’s photographs, I quickly became enamored with The Anonymous Project and the kaleidoscopic collective memory Shulman is honoring through it.

So, when I saw that Shulman had a Martin Parr documentary in the works, my interest was instantly piqued. Their work was so clearly already in conversation with one another, and it made complete sense to me that the two would collaborate. As it turns out, they already had, having assembled a book together in 2021 entitled Déjà View. I Am Martin Parr (2024) continues to explore this relationship between two artists who have an extreme respect and affection for one another, chronicling a road trip the pair went on together around the UK.

I could not sit idly by without reaching out to Shulman to hear more about the film and his experience with Martin. Our conversation is below, edited lightly for clarity and length.

What’s the backstory of your own personal relationship with Martin Parr and his work? What is it about Martin’s photographs that originally spoke to you? 

I’ve had a huge love for Martin since I discovered him when I was a young student, and he changed my world. I’d never seen anyone who’d done images like his before.

Then, we met each other in 2019. I had a big exhibition in Arles, which is a big photography festival in France, and he also had a big installation work there that was well known. I saw him, and I grabbed him, and I professed my undying love for him. It was all very pathetic. We got friendly because he liked my work too.

I saw him and I grabbed him and I professed my undying love for him. It was all very pathetic.

We stayed in contact, and then I had this idea. I said to Martin, “I’ve got all your images in the Anonymous Project. I’ve got them, and they look exactly the same as your images.” I sent him some examples of our images together, and he wrote me an email where he just wrote, “Yes.” That’s how Martin speaks. He just wrote one word. We did the book and called it Déjà View; it came out in 2021, and it pairs up our photos. It’s pretty crazy because we didn’t say who did what; it was very cheeky of us. We haven’t left each other since then. That was kind of the base for all of this.

He has a huge affinity for the work I do, I obviously have an enormous love for his work. 

Is there a favorite photo of his that sticks out to you?

When I was a film student in the 90s, I had his book called The Last Resort, which they say is his seminal work. I hate that because I think he’s made up of more than just one thing, but it’s the book that kind of changed everything for him. The Last Resort is his work from New Brighton, and it was pretty mind-blowing for me. I wasn’t sure if I liked it or didn’t like it; it was so different. A lot of people hated his work, and a lot of people were crazy about his work. I couldn’t make up my mind. I thought it was a genius, and I thought it was brilliant, like nothing I’d ever seen before. It was beautiful and ugly at the same time, that contradiction. Showing the UK I know, being English myself; showing the world that we live in rather than the world we imagine. He’s not beautifying the world, he’s showing it as we are: mouth open, food in your mouth, and all those things. You’re like, oh, this is kind of real life. We’re not used to that.

Martin changed everything for me.

It really did mark me. There were moments like that with other artists in my life, the Basquiats and people like this, that changed everything. And Martin changed everything for me. His language was new to me. I went through The Last Resort so much that it fell apart, and I had to buy a second copy. We go back to New Brighton in the film and revisit it with him.

There are extreme, almost uncanny similarities between your work with The Anonymous Project and Martin’s photos. Can you identify what some of those commonalities are?

We work on very similar levels. He is showing the extraordinary side of ordinary life, and I think I’m doing the same. Honesty is an important part in photography, where what I’m showing is real life, and he, as a photographer, wants to get as close to that as he can. 

We have a lot in common technically as well, which is really interesting. When people were taking Kodachromes in the 50s, they had to use a flash and high color. That was an influence on him, so he was shooting with flash in the daylight, which people had to do in the 50s because of the film stock. So there is a similar look to our images. 

A lot of those moments that sometimes seem banal and seem like nothing are very touching and emotional.

He’s trying to capture real-life moments of real people and everyday situations, which is also what you find in amateur and family photography. A lot of those moments that sometimes seem banal and seem like nothing are very touching and emotional. There’s a very emotional approach to photography that Martin has, too.

There’s this idea that we’ve always championed, which is that anyone can take a photograph. We always believe that, but not everyone can choose an image, and I think that’s a really important point about photography and image making. In the end, it’s not about taking the photo; anyone can take great photos. But choosing an image and saying, that’s the image, and that’s why it’s that image, and why I’m going to put it in a book, that is a huge part of what we do. It’s almost the editing of photography that is the photography part of it for me.

Martin will say, “I take 50,000 photos a year, and there might be eight good ones in that year.” And I’m looking at 50,000 slides on my table, and I’m choosing eight— there’s not that much difference in that. I think we share that ability to choose very few images that we feel really speak to you and have a message or tell a story about life. 

We share a common love for humanity as well. Martin has always been criticized for being very unhuman and being very critical and very ironic and poking fun, which I don’t agree with at all. I’m totally against that, I think he’s the opposite. I think he has an incredible love for humanity and people. He loves people. I think we share that, and the film is about that. It’s us going on this road trip and having crazy moments and seeing this crazy world we live in. 

I see these images and just think, Wow, that’s a pure act of love.

That’s always been my interpretation of Martin’s work as well; the whole reason why he’s even noticing and then bothering to capture something or someone mundane with his camera is because he loves and appreciates it. 

That’s it. People over-intellectualized photography, and Martin and I hate that. There’s so much snobbery around it all, it’s nonsense. The reason that we take a photo, generally, especially in amateur photography, it’s purely an act of love. It’s to say, “I love you, and I want to remember this moment.” It’s as simple as that; you don’t have to complicate it. There’s something so honest and beautiful about that. Some images still cause my hair to go up when I see them. I see these images and just think, Wow, that’s a pure act of love.

At what point did you decide you wanted to do a documentary about Martin? How did that idea come about?

I’d been a filmmaker beforehand, but I’d never done a documentary. I have a friend who’s a producer, and she’s quite well known in documentaries here, and she’s always been getting on at me to do a documentary.

No one has ever made a documentary about Martin before. People have tried, but Martin is very difficult to access. He’s not a very talkative guy, and he’s kind of a weird cookie, and you have to gain his trust. They knew the access was me because I knew him, so I called him up and said, “Listen, they’re going to throw some money at me, and we should go out and do a film about you.” I said, “If we do a film, it’s not going to be like, you were born here, you were growing up there, it’s going to be a different type of film. We’re going to kidnap you and put you in a van, and we’re going to go off.” It was the year of the coronation in the UK, so it was the perfect timing. So he kind of just said, “Yeah.” I don’t know why he says yes to me because he says no to everyone else. I think it’s because I make him laugh. We get on well. We’re just two immature school kids; we kind of never grew up. There’s that kind of mischievousness about getting on the road and having fun.

I don’t know why he says yes to me, because he says no to everyone else. I think it’s because I make him laugh.

I had a great producer who just gave me free range, they said, “It’s your film, Lee.” And Martin said, “You do the film. I don’t want to ever see it.” I was just given this freedom to do a film how I wanted to do it, which is so rare in this day and age. And obviously, it was great to work with someone that I admire. I wanted to give this film back to the people, in some respects. It sounds a bit pretentious, but in some respects, Martin is the people’s photographer. I wanted this film to be for people who are not into photography or may not know him. I think that’s the reason the film probably works, is because if you don’t know anything about photography, or you don’t know anything about Martin, you’re still going to like the film. It’s a bit of a crazy trip.

I was just given this freedom to do a film how I wanted to do it, which is so rare in this day and age.

How long was the road trip you took together in the film? 

It’s not a lot! I didn’t even shoot much! It was over different weekends and different moments, but if we put it all together, it’s not huge. It probably ends up being three weeks of shooting, which sounds like nothing. But that’s because I knew what I wanted to show and how to show it. He so influenced my life that it looks like Martin Parr could have shot the film because it’s the way I’ve always worked as well. I see the world through his eyes a little bit; he lives in my head.

Were there any new things that you learned about Martin or his process through filming him in this way? 

Well, you see him, and he’s got holes in his jumper, he’s got this little bag, he doesn’t have assistants, he pulls out his camera and he’s got Scotch tape on it because it’s falling apart, and he goes out, and you’ll see him in the middle of nowhere go click! and you’re like Oh, God… and then you see the photo after, and you’re like, Oh, shit… It looks like nothing and simple, and it’s not glamorous at all; it’s really the opposite, but the result is what he wants. It’s about getting the images. He’s not interested in the technique as much as you’d think. It’s what’s happening in front of him. He’s looking with his eyes, he’s not looking with the camera. The camera comes in afterward, so it’s what he sees. The good photographers I know are looking all the time, but they’re not looking with a camera.

He’s looking with his eyes, he’s not looking with the camera.

It was pretty amazing to see him walk around; if you don’t love people, then you can’t be a photographer. You must have respect for people and life and look for the craziness of life. So that was surprising to me; I didn’t realize there was so much without the camera. I think this is what makes a great artist.

What sort of experience do you hope viewers of the film have?

There are so many different ways of seeing the work, and I’m not there to force a message on anyone. I tried to make a film that is my own personal view on Martin, but also on England. It’s a real love letter to England as well, which I kind of turned my back on for 23 years when I lived in Paris. I have a love-hate relationship with the UK, and I think Martin shares that with me, especially with Brexit and all those things. This film reconciled me with the UK, personally.

But I think the main idea is that the ordinary can be really extraordinary. We’re always looking at these amazing things in the distance that are far away, in other countries, but you only have to look right around you, and there’s amazing stuff happening, and we’re blind to that. He says, just stop, have a look around, and see what’s going on. The world is crazy and mad and absurd.

Even though a lot of his photos show a very tragic part of the world, which is all this consumerism and the end of the working class, it’s funny, and it’s tragic at the same time. That’s what I like about his work: comedy and tragedy have always lived in the same space.

That’s what I like about his work: comedy and tragedy have always lived in the same space.

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