Martin Parr

“The ability for us to laugh at ourselves is Britain's saving grace.”

“As we travel around Britain, I am convinced most of us cannot really appreciate what we are seeing. We take too much for granted, because it is all so familiar.”

“Over the years, I have perfected the art of dancing and photographing at the same time: it's a great double act. If you're dancing, you are joining in. If you stand there rigid, you are not in the flow of things.”

“Fashion pictures show people looking glamorous. Travel pictures show a place looking at its best, nothing to do with the reality. In the cookery pages, the food always looks amazing, right? Most of the pictures we consume are propaganda.”

“Taking photos is a form of collecting.”

“Margaret Thatcher was very good for the arts in so far as it gave people a real focus for something to be against.”

“I am a big fan of Jim Jarmusch, and I do love big screen documentaries.”

“The trouble with Hollywood films is that they always have a pleasant ending.”

“You can easily take photographs at a wedding - no one would question it. But funerals are different.”

“I photograph people as I find them. But people have issues about how they look.”

“There are elements of irony in my work, of course.”

“When I fly British Airways, I can't help but read the free Daily Mail, which makes me glad I am leaving the country.”

“There are 65 to 70 photography galleries in New York alone. In the U.K., there are no more than five, and they're all in London.”

“Sepia in particular tends to make everything look a bit romantic and almost sentimental, hence the fact that it remains such a popular choice for wedding photographs.”

“Modern technology has taken the angst out of achieving the perfect shot. For me, the only thing that counts is the idea behind the image: what you want to see and what you're trying to say. The idea is crucial. You have to think of something you want to say and expand upon it.”

“I just go out and try to make sense of the world around me.”

“If you go to the supermarket and buy a package of food and look at the photo on the front, the food never looks like that inside, does it? That is a fundamental lie we are sold every day.”

“If there is any jarring at all in my photographs, it's because we are so used to ingesting pictures of everywhere looking beautiful.”

“I pride myself in being an aficionado of the British seaside. Throughout my career, I have visited and worked in many of the famous British resorts, from Great Yarmouth to Largs.”

“When someone says to you, 'Oh, I don't take a good picture,' what they mean is they haven't come to terms with how they look. They take a fine picture, it's just that their image of how they think they look is not in touch with the reality.”