Martin Parr, the English documentary photographer who took part in a project to document and archive ordinary life in 1980s Salford, has died at the age of 73.
He passed away on Saturday 6 December at his home in Bristol.
In 1986 he completed a commission for the Documentary Photography Archive where he captured the idiosyncrasies of Salford shoppers in supermarkets across the city.
He told the BBC’s Saturday Review programme that the project was important because it chronicled parts of “ordinary” life that photographers often overlook.
“I think it is very important to look at the way that photographs represent society,” Parr said during an interview broadcast on BBC Two.
“They tend to go for the extremes of society rather than the very ordinary things because photographers find them a lot more interesting.
“Retailing is very interesting because in one sense, it is so familiar to us, we all go to the shops, but its a subject people don’t tend to photograph.
“One of the purposes of the archive is to try and build up sets of photographs that actually deal with things that are so ordinary but just as vulnerable to change.
“When I first started the commission, I went around all of the areas of Salford, looked at all of the shops and then decided the kind of shops I wanted to photograph and went around again, looked through my notes and picked out the ones I thought were good examples.
“I then would go to them, spend two or three days photographing them and get to know the shop and also look for little pointers, visuals or messages I could incorporate in the photographs.
“Documentary photography has always been done in black and white I suppose the reason for that is to try and emphasise the emotive quality of the subject.
“For this work, I was keen to get away from the supermarket and focus on its quite gaudy colour.”
A statement by the Martin Parr Foundation following his death said: “It is with great sadness that we announce that Martin Parr (1952-2025) died 6th December 2025 at home in Bristol.
“He is survived by his wife Susie, his daughter Ellen, his sister Vivien and his grandson George. The family asks for privacy at this time.
“The Martin Parr Foundation and Magnum Photos will work together to preserve and share Martin’s legacy. More information on this will follow in due course.
“Martin will be greatly missed.”
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