Martin Parr – Jubilee Street Party, England, Yorkshire – 1977

Martin Parr – Jubilee Street Party, England, Yorkshire – 1977

Adrian Street and his Farther, 1973.
Dennis Hutchinson

Val Williams wrote an essay on Martin Parr’s Jubilee Street Party. In her essay she talks about Martin Parr and his work style and a small bit on how his style has changed. She also talks about how the location of the Jubilee Party was located in a different place than you would think also how a piece of food in the image pulls the whole image together.

Martin Parr - Jubilee Street Party, England, Yorkshire, 1977

Val Williams goes into detail about the image. She talks about where and when the image was taken, you see this from where she says ‘Made in west Yorkshire in the mid-to-late 1970s’ Here she gives a location and a rough date as to when the picture was taken. She has also mentioned the collection of Martin Parr’s that this image belongs to ‘the Bad Weather series’.

Williams also talks a lot about Martin Parr himself and how since this picture, Jubilee Street Party, was taken Parr’s style changed considerably ‘to reject black and white photography in favour of colour’ Here she mentions how since the image and the Bad Weather series Martin Parr decided to move away from black and white photography and started to experiment with using colour photography instead, Val Williams does not mention why he decided to make this change in his work style though.

I the end of the essay Williams discusses how the cake in the centre of the table pulled the whole image together and how without the cake the image would be ‘lacked a centre’ The cake was the main viewpoint of the whole scene, it stands out higher than the other lots of food and it creates a path leading to the mill chimneys which then leads to the clear sky’s as it towers over the surrounding buildings.