Martin Parr loves beaches because they provide the ideal locations for him to capture people letting themselves go either as families, couples or individuals. He has another reason to favor the sea scene, a chance to explore new photographic ideas that are possible with the latest kit.
There is only one page of text in the book but it's quite fascinating because it lists, historically, how equipment has fashioned Parr's creativity during his professional life. Starting in 1970-1982 in black and white because colour was only regarded then as the medium for advertising and personal snaps. The decades move forward using flash (1982-86) standard lens (1987-88) macro and ring-flash (1995-2008) digital (2007 onwards) and telephoto lens (2014 onwards). I've mentioned all of this because I think the book is probably of interest more to photographers than the general photobook reader. The seventy-five photos show a variety of beach scenes in various European, Asian and South American countries but mainly in Britain. There are close-ups, long shots, crowds or just a few people on large expanses of sand. The most interesting, I though, are where Parr uses foliage on the edge of a beach to create almost abstract shapes in front of the camera, sometimes slightly out of focus, with beach, sea and people in the distance.
The book's landscape format works well for this kind of photography and the photos are printed with an impressively fine screen on a matt art. Oddly, all the photos are printed as captioned thumbnails on four pages at the back of the book rather putting these brief captions centred below each photo on the relevant pages.
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