One of the most popular photographers on the planet recounts his life and art

When Martin Parr was fourteen, his teacher wrote that he was ‘utterly lazy and inattentive’ in a school report. He went on to become one of the most successful and sought-after photographers in the world. Martin has published over one hundred photobooks on many different subjects, from seaside resorts to smoking, over his career. Now, for the first and only time, Martin has produced a book about himself, telling his own story, in his own words.

This autobiography combines over 150 of Martin’s photographs – from his earliest snapshots to the work he is doing today – with his recollections and reflections on each image. We meet a boy growing up in suburbia, who collects obsessively and notices everything. We see him exploding into the public consciousness in the late eighties with a series of startling, ultra-saturated colour images of the British seaside – and scandalising the photography establishment in the process. We see society changing over the decades, from the demise of steam trains, through the opening of the first McDonald’s in Moscow, to the transformations of the post-pandemic world.

As Martin shares his story, his distinctive voice delicately captured by his friend, the writer Wendy Jones, he also reveals his approach to work and commissions; his tricks for gaining access and getting the shot; and he divulges his particular passions: for crowds and queues, fetes and placards, bad weather on beaches, and more.

This is the definitive account of a great photographer’s career, curating the work that has defined his life. By looking at the world through his eyes and his lens, we come away seeing Martin Parr – and ourselves – a little differently.

When Vivian Maier's archive was discovered in Chicago in 2007, the photography community gained an immense and singular talent. Little-known during her lifetime, Maier is now recognized as one of the great American photographers of the twentieth century. Born in New York in 1926 to an Austro-Hungarian father and French mother, she lived in France several times in her youth and worked as a governess in New York and Chicago for much of her adult life. It was during her years as a governess that she took many of the photographs that have made her posthumously famous. Now the subject of films and books, Maier lived in relative obscurity until her death in 2009.

Maier's incredible body of work consists of more than 150,000 photographic images, super 8 and 16 mm films, various recordings, and a multitude of undeveloped films. Working primarily as a street photographer, Maier's work has been compared with such luminaries as Helen Levitt, Robert Frank, Diane Arbus, and Joel Meyerowitz.

Thanks to unpublished archives and recent scientific analyses, this retrospective volume sheds new light on Maier's work as it documents the artistry of her photographic oeuvre. With texts by Anne Morin and Christa Blümlinger, this detailed look at Maier's entire archive is organized thematically into sections that cover self-portraits, the street, portraits, gestures, cinematography, children, color work, and forms. A valuable addition to the continuing assessment of Maier’s work, this book is a one-volume compendium of her most enduring images.