Magnum Blog / Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu

Peru. Machu Picchu. An Inca site situated 2,400 meters (7,875 ft) above sea level. Often referred to as "The Lost City of the Incas", Machu Picchu probably is the most familiar symbol of the Inca Empire. It is also one of the New Seven Wonders of the World. 2008. © Martin Parr/Magnum Photos For many years I have been photographing some of the great tourist locations of the world, from the Pyramids through to the Taj Mahal. The bigger the honey pot the happier I am, as the expectation - as opposed to the reality - is always a good starting point for my photographic explorations. One place has always eluded me, but finally I managed to get to Machu Picchu, situated high in the Andes in Peru. Whenever we contemplate that iconic image of this remarkably situated lost city, one thing is certain: there are no people around. I wanted to see what was actually happening at Machu Pichu, knowing how popular it had become. Is it really as deserted as the images suggest? Machu Picchu is not easy to get to, unlike most iconic sites in the world where a short ride from the airport will land you at the entrance gate. First you have to fly from Lima to Cuzco, and then take a four hour train journey to Aguas Calientes. There is no choice about this as it is impossible to make your way by car. Then you have to get on the local service bus and zig-zag your way up the steep mountainside to the entrance. When you arrive at an airport early in the morning, you are never first there and you wonder where everyone comes from. The same applies with Machu Picchu. I was there at 7.30am, thinking I would familiarise myself with the site, before the rush. Already the place was packed. © Martin Parr/Magnum Photos However there was a problem, the view that I had travelled half way round the world to see was shrouded in mist. I suddenly thought that this might linger for the next two days and I started to panic, thinking I may not see the site at all. I was not alone in this fear, as this is where the famous Inca Trail finishes. Those arriving in after a gruelling four day hike were devastated not to be able to see and photograph the view. However, within an hour the mist thinned and glimpses of the most famous prospect in South America started to emerge. Indeed this slow revelation was more dramatic and impressive than the unremittingly sunny scene the day after. Between the hours of 10am and 2pm the site is at its busiest, with up to 4000 visitors arriving every day. Knowing how inaccessible this place is, it is staggering where and how they emerge. It is also not a cheap visit as each foreign tourist has to pay 122 soles (roughly $41) to enter the site. I am convinced that this entrance payment, together with the cost of the journey and the trekking are probably keeping the Peruvian economy afloat, as 70 % of all visitors are foreigners. © Martin Parr/Magnum Photos Aguas Calienties, the town at the base of the steep climb to Macchu Picchu has one purpose, and that is to supply board, lodging and food for the visitors to the site. All tastes and budgets are catered for, from expensive and luxurious hotels through to the numerous hostels for backpackers, as the appeal of Macchu Picchu is universal. Twenty years ago there was hardly anything there, but now the town is really buzzing, as in the last decade alone, visitor numbers have trebled. There are no cars as the town is only accessible via the train. I photographed renditions of the view of Macchu Pichu as many restaurants, massage parlours, souvenir shops or whatever, use this as decoration. What is it that drives so many people to visit, sometimes with great difficulty, this remarkable place? It has an appeal that must go beyond the attraction of the usual honey pot. It is a glimpse of a lost world, hidden from man until discovered by Hiram Bingham in 1911. It is one of the most beautiful sights on earth and is potentially about to become a victim of its own success as visitors swarm over the walls and terraces. Get there soon, as there are rumours that they will have to build a replica before the real Macchu Picchu is trampled to death. Links » Martin Parr's Magnum Portfolio » See more of Martin Parr's Machu Picchu photographs » Martin Parr's Books (Signed from the Magnum Store)

Rob

Wow. These are just horrible photos. Typically I really like Martin Parr's work and relish the juxtaposition of garish images with the implied commentaries, but these photos really just look like someone's vacation photos--drab, dull, and uninteresting.

Jeremy Johnson

I was there last May, only I hiked the Inca Trail and was on the grounds by 07:00 to see a spectacular sunrise over Machu Picchu. You're absolutely right, the site is flooded with tourists by 10:00 and provided a good excuse for me to leave. The bus ride down the mountain was harrowing, to say the least. Aguas Calientes, well, your description is fitting although I might add that for most people its not a great place to spend any amount of time in. I got stuck there for a little more than 24 hours and I think I walked every square inch of the village. The trail, on the other hand, was incredible and highly recommended.

Louise

I'm not inspired by these images. Perhaps there are more? Judging from these, I would not have guessed Parr.

tajik

very good . i Appetit going to here .

Emil Ihrig

Martin, thanks for sparing me the inconvenience of trekking to Macchu Picchu just to witness hundreds of tourists running amuck. But on another note, where else might one have the opportunity to capture an image of a tourist attempting to strike a pose of a Lama. :0)

Btw, I just love your work!

Ian

I really like the first photo. It humorously talks about the mystic energy people attribute to this place. It's ironic that a thriving town has once more arisen in this remote place. Thanks for the story. It was very entertaining and thought provoking to read.

Lucas

Martin,
thanks for sharing. I went to Machu Picchu last year and opted for the hike. The main benefit of hiking the trail is that you get into the 'park' one to two hours before the torrents of people gush through the 'general admission' gates. It offset my body odor (for the most part).

I disagree with those who dislike these pictures. Mr. Parr wasnt here to show us the site or provide tour-guide shots, but to help people understand how many people there are here and i find them very appropriate for the task that he set out to accomplish. Thanks again!

- Lucas

Stupid Photographer

I see right through you, Martin. You made freaking God awful snaps of the heavenly place to keep people away from it. Stupid, but effective.

peter

Even though Parr did a quick text fix, his pic spread remains boring.

martin parr

Folks, there is a set of 50 and these are just a few to whet the appetite.
One does not want to give everything away on the first hit.
Martin

Patricia Lay-Dorsey

Martin, you are great! I adore how you did what I've seen NO ONE else do and that is to show what travelers to Machu Picchu REALLY see...that is if they can see over the heads of the masses of tourists surrounding them! To me, this is what we photographers hope for but so rarely accomplish--to take a common scene and show the truth of it in expected ways. I looked at all 50 photos and came away grinning from ear to ear. Man, you really captured it. Great job!!!

Patricia

deghia

Do you know some place in the world without tourists !!!! You needs to think who its the responsable of this tragedy !!!

Now its important to hide !!!
fantastic idea of the pics after all this yearss....

Joe

Martin Parr you are surely a national treasure to the UK as a photographer and to Magnum a refreshing cultural-quake. People will someday say ’oh, that was after Magnum accepted Martin, or ’oh, that was before Parr was a Magnum photographer.’

I’ve always felt a sense of genius at work with your edits and I’ll buy any book you ever write about the guerrilla warfare you’ve weighed on classical photojournalism, because I think you’re winning.

but with all the respect a master deserves, please, for the love of god, stick to taking pictures, if you want to write about pictures, only write about the ways you’ve succeeded with getting them published, and please never ever again deflate the ambiguity of your work by flooding them with all kinds of naff, travel-bent commentary… You’re a photographer, not a Hemmingway! ;-)
..

Patricia Lay-Dorsey

Joe, I'm sorry but I see it differently. To me, Martin's text added to my appreciation of his photos. I loved hearing his behind-the-scenes musings on why he made this arduous trip to Machu Picchu, why he only focused his camera on the tourists and what surrounds this icon, ie., the town that caters to tourists and their needs. All this was news to me. To have seen the photos without some introduction would have made me miss their significance.

So, Martin, I say please keep the words coming too!

BTW there was a typo in my earlier post. I meant to say, "To me, this is what we photographers hope for but so rarely accomplish--to take a common scene and show the truth of it in UNexpected ways."

Patricia

david bowen

martin - you kill me, honestly.. very funny

i like the commentary provided in this case as it lends a perspective to the work which is probably not dissimilar to the write up in the lonely planet.. mixed with probably some of the disappointments which all tourists feel at these epic sites, but which they keep from their friends when it´s time for the slideshow and dry crusted sandwiches back home..

in the same way that all attempt to photograph places such as this with, as you say, the absence of other tourists.. doesn´t everyone want to feel just a little bit like bingham when the cloud cover lifts?

if the cheese is ripe, bite it.

been a fan since ´home and abroad´, (which has pretty much been out on loan since 1993... as it is now), and have to say that for me it´s when you are tackling tourism that you really shine..
... the betrayal of the myth, in so far as none of these sights hold much in the way of mystery anymore... beyond that within our own imaginations... and with cheap airlines removing travel from the preserve of the rich the truth is that we all know that mystery is not there anymore..
... in fact mystery now lives in far more palatial surroundings, out of view from the prying eyes.... and in much more humble dwellings, i´m sure.

i guess there were, (and perhaps still are), problems with your ´truth´ within the agency, however plausible and correct your truth is, which was, (and perhaps still is), a shame..
the world has moved beyond the exclusive nature of ´holidaying to the exotic´, and you´ve moved along with it, perhaps laughing at our own absurdity.

these days ´traveling´seems to entail no more than someone making a list of sights/countries/craaaaazy bars followed individually by the echoing response of,
´bin there... bin there... bin there too´
that must be to the loss of internal traveling.. and it the polar opposite of ´gathering the world together´.. or understanding relative reality..
i think it´s brave to expose this world from the perspective of an insider ..

photos people have of themselves standing at the taj, at a glacier or the great wall have gone way beyond recording consumption, proof of the act or filling an unreal memory and are a parody of themselves.. taken without even the slightest nod in ironies direction.

in short, i like the air on planet parrr..
so..

where you off to next, now you have ´done´ machu picchu?
david

Sean

I'm with you Joe, leave it to the audience to appreciate and interpret the images.

It is a blog tho... so I guess you need some words.

Martin, do you ever feel that the flood of your tourist images (50 in this series alone) may find the images themselves falling back on the dangerous and slippery ground of cliche? People photographing each other, people looking at famous landmarks etc? If you have said this before with other images, do you still feel strongly enough to show it again (although in a different location, I feel your work is more universal than the particular place in which the photograph was made).

I appreciate you take on life and photorgaphy and I respect your personal vision, but I can't help see a correlation between this work and the cliched photographs of mental asylums and such that was the favoured subject of the yesteryear photojournalist.

Discussion/thoughts?

Thanks.

ian

My-my, your work sure seems to bring out the venom. I guess that's a price of fame? I don't know what it's like, but I'm glad you don't get discouraged by it.

Besides putting food on the table, I imagine that most photographers make work with the hope that other people will enjoy it. It always surprises my how pissed-off people can get if you don't deliver on their enjoyment.

Sean

I think forums such as these breathe life into photography and promote serious discussion of it. Without this blog where else could someone discuss Martin's photography with the man himself.

Not sure who Ian is referring to by "venom", but I have great respect and fondness for heaps of Martin's work. My comment above came from a gut feeling after seeing these new images. In the context of the entire series, I may feel differently.

As I wrote..... any discussion/thoughts?

Thanks again.

nigel amies

Martin Parr's photos are all boring! Not only boring but totally ugly. That's obviously his point. It's an interesting one too, and a good antidote to all the hyped-up tourist promotions you get from just about every country pathetically prostituting itself to the tourist dollar. These days you have to travel to get away from it, or stay home and phototgraph the cockroaches in your bathroom instead. Or do what Martin Parr does. Anything else is just an illusion

Sean

I don't think Martin's images are totally ugly at all. It opens up the whole notion of personal aesthetics. I saw an exhibition of Parr's at The Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid (2003)and it was absolutely beautiful. One of the most beautiful shows I have ever seen.

My feelings to Martin's work is that it is overall very beautiful. The prints are especially stunning.

I feel that Parr's work actually celebrates life as it is, in all it's guises. As he said in a doco on Magnum, whilst working in Essex, "I love your earrings!", And then pop, a Parr photo.

His interaction with the people and the things he photographs is mostly affirmative (from the little I have seen, never first hand though) and he actually seems very happy to be interacting with his subjects. He seems to enjoying himself whilst seriously practicing his craft, which is a great thing.

When the photos are printed and published they can contain all sorts of connotations and meanings to different people. Obviously there are some pretty obvious and easily obtained themes in his work, but all that really matters is the actual photograph, and over the years he has produced very beautiful bodies of work that are very pleasing and interesting to look at, and secondly, they have some underlying social meanings.

I believe the best photographs start and finish with the photograph itself. Stories come and go, but the photographs that exist for no reason apart from the reaction of the photographer always stay more powerful for longer.

Much of Parr's personal works stand alone as very powerful photographs, without the need to place them socially. Photographs that are made with pretense (or made on assignment), I believe are more easily read, and therefore lose some of their power.

david bowen

sean.. i think there is an important point in your initial post.. especially regarding cliche and teh asylum images.. people struggling..

i would guess that any photographer working a long term project could be taken for a one trick pony.. the phoojournalism of yesterday is, as you point out, a case in point.
there has always been an obsession with photographers that they think they must cut-their-teeth with hard subjects and people suffering. i think it still remains very difficult to be taken seriously as a photographer unless you represent this area of life.

i wonder if a lot of the negative feeling towards martins work is from a backward looking perspective, rather than a progressive one? i mean - we all know that poverty looks tough.. we know about donor fatigue.. exist in a world where being brutalized by photography is commonplace.. accepted as ´the real thing´in fact.

quite to the contrary, the ´real thing´does not, for me, exist in a subject .. it exists in the passion which delivers a consistent vision and theme over a period of time.. and martin, i think, does that definition justice.

wouldn´t we all rather find cliche in the work of parr or lesser known modern documentists, than find cliche in images of war, suffering and pain?

many fall for the idea that by becoming a social documentarian they HAVE to see tough things.. i feel for it in my teens and after a number of years around tough subjects it was a real relief to begin photographing what i wanted to show, rather than what i thought was the accepted definition of genuine work.

i think that by accepting martin into magnum they have in tern allowed us all to find our own voice .. personal vision.. and feel that we are still doing serious work, whatever the subject.
i´d rather a hundred photographers photographing their own thing, one trick pony, cliche or not, than a hundred photographers photographing somebody throwing stones at policemen in some dark corner of the world.
in the past tough social documentation educated us about the worlds troubles.. and i think it´s quite correct for the camera to now be turned on ourselves and see where our part in the world lay.

thanks for provoking thought sean.. what do you think?
david

Sean

A testament to Martin's work is that people seem to be very firmly in the "for" camp, or firmly in the "against" camp in regards to their opinion about his photographs. I believe the discussion and debate about photographing suffering is tired and out of date. It is very mainstream to photograph one's own existence, and has been for quite awhile, but I believe it can produce the most powerful images.

Mind you, there is plent of suffering to be found in everyone's life, again it just depends on how each person takes it. Images of "traditional visual suffering " i.e war, mental asylums etc don't actually make me sad for the most part. I will usually flick though these types of images very quickly and have little or no response. When I want my "hit" of suffering and what's going on in somewhere like Iraq, I look at youtube and type in a few key words and I'm shown some pretty confronting things that really make me "feel". I think one of the most powerful recent pieces of photography comes from Bruce Gilden on foreclosures in America (featured on Insight America: http://inmotion.magnumphotos.com/insightamerica/foreclosures).

This work made me sad, very sad. But not the pictures of people so much as the boarded up homes (plus the audio). It makes me think about Larry Towell's work and his long term theme of land and how people identify themselves with the piece of land that they own.

I think it is fair to say that Martin Parr is a very strong person and a very strong photographer, as I think there are many photographers who follow trends (and some are very successful) instead of making their relationship with photography as personal as his. Hats off to you Mr Parr for producing personal images for over forty years.

Donovan Wylie said that Martin Parr was the best thing ever to happen to Magnum, and he's right. Parr's vision is personal, as you say David, and has been ever since the beginning. I think that his photographs are intelligent and they will, with time, become some of the most precious visual records of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, of this I am quite sure.

There is however, a point, when reached, which tips the balance of inspiring photography becoming 'overdone' (now it is I who is reverting to cliches). Thinking about it now, perhaps my comments were premature, in the fact that perhaps Martin has not yet reached this point and his photographs continue to inspire, and dare I say entertain. The point I was thinking about (and trying to express in an amicable discussive manner) was this...When does something become so "done" (i.e photographs of tourists taking photographs of famous landmarks) that their initial power and impression is lost in the flux of similar images? Even if those images are by the same photographer? I am all for photographers following the same themes for their entire working lives, because this is in essence who they are. And that is very interesting. My thoughts regarding this initial post were not directed at the themes themselves, but the manner by which these themes are delivered in photorgaphs to the public. "Cliches are truisims and all truisms are true" I heard in a movie once, and its quite right. But.....as Parr delves deeper and deeper into his themes of globalisation, consumerism, capitalism etc. will he (or you Mr P. if you are reading) be happy shooting simialr photographs over and over again?

NOTE: I can't think of (m)any people who would know more about photography, editing, book and exhibition making than Parr (hats off again to you Mr. P). And I'm sure that not many people think about photography as much as he does, or has for so long. With this in mind I believe this work is owed due respect, like it or not, because if you truly appreciate the medium of photography, you will be open to the advancements made by people who pioneer their own true personal visions and make it known in the real world. Not many photographers out there stimulate my own thoughts and feelings about the medium so much as those of Parr (also Evans, Eggleston, D'Agata, Larrain to name a few).

Thanks (& sorry for length)

ian

Sean, I don't think your post was out of line at all. I was referring to the many adjectives and seeming attacks on this page. I my world, horrible, dull, boring, stop writing and stick to photography...would not be considered compliments, or polite. Perhaps in Parr's world of the anti-precious and ironic commentary of the anti-aesthetic these are actually compliments. Maybe a strong reaction is the compliment. I'm all for debate and I'm also grateful for the opportunity to talk directly to the artists on this blog. It just shocks me a little that people would waste the opportunity by writing seemingly rude pot-shots. I can't but help wonder how I would feel getting that response. Everyone sees from the top of their own mound of dirt.

Emil Ihrig

What I find interesting about the bulk of Martin's images is that they speak volumes without lengthy captions. I always feel that when an image maker attempts to explain an image with the written or spoken word the experiential quality of the image is lost.

How can one successfully "explain" the aroma of a rose or the strains of a Mozart symphony? :0)

Joe

Ian i abhor tit-for-tat exchanges, but i agree manners over opinions are important so i’m going to un-confuse what you say about my comment. Ian you clipped my comment out of context. If you revisit what i say i hope you might see that my comment is laced with deep positive feelings toward Martin Parr that transcend empty hero worship and more so, much more than groupie group-think. It started with adoration and ends with the only way you can grin and wink on the web. Rather than mud, might this just be an affectionate feedback nudge? Ian you do say one thing that i like “Maybe a strong reaction is the compliment” if you change ‘strong’ to ‘sincere’ then we would be in perfect agreement.

Sorry to steal some blog real-estate on this nicely developing post, so i’ll convert my post to say thanks to the effort Sean and David Bowen are making; it reinforces concisely what i like to think about Parr’s entry to Magnum. He’s proven it’s better than ‘ok’ to photograph what you know rather than what’s sensational. I also suspect there are some Magnum photographers that entered subsequent to Parr that were only possible because Parr was so successful with subject matter that before him seemed impossible.
..

martin parr

Many thanks for all the comments both negative and positive. I had no idea that a simple set of images of this tourist icon would create so much steam. I accept that the same repeating images of people photographing, have been done before, but like many , indeed all ,of the tourists going top Machu Picchu , it was a place I had wanted to visit for many years. However taking images at the site you sweated to get to, is so much part of what one does there, it is an integral part of the experience.
in terms opf my membership of Magnum, I am excited about the direction in which we are going ,and am happy to be one of the contributing new photographers to our evoloution.

Bob Black

I've said it too countless times that Parr's work is sui generis...and not the least of which has to do with having joined Magnum...I know Martin and a few others used to be considered "Magnum Lite" (by PJG and others), but as an institute and, for good and ill, as a bellweather, Magnum and it's orientation has been a substantial part of our collective and professional lives, and well Parr joined magnum it helped alot (imho) to reach out to many to countenance a fundamental truism about photography:

photography is the landscape by which we so often seek an understanding and an expression of our lives...it's the one thing that still, imho, many journalists havent understood, and if the ubiquitous cellphone with camera, and all those blogs and myspaces and youtubes and photosharing/facebook sites remind, it is that it aint really language that communicates our lives to others, but the wrested image...

and do this: do a quick Google search on Machu Picchu and see how long and how many images you find of that magnificent green giant swamped with tourists clammering for their spiritual oxygen....like, yo...none...at least for a long time...yea, the occassional pretty snap of the lone partner rising in the foreground, like Livingston at the source of the nile or prometheus unchained, but for the most part the snaps we get of Machu Picchu (professional and amateur) are of the "inspirational" the "heroic", the towering emptyness of the landscape and the ring'd mountains.....

that aint machu picchu...Machu picchu, now, is the first Parr pick above....that IS Machu Picchu now...and what does this say about us and our global world....

pictures, boring??...pictures can be exciting for many many different reasons...not the least of which is that we recognize in them US....the same way I find Family Albums extraordinary and lush and inspiring (and im a total cracker nuthead for them and have an insatiable need to see people's cellphone pics or family trip pics, etc).....

removing the traditional aesthetic "qualities" of a photography does not necessarily make it any less moving, challenging, invirorating, maddening...

photography is a language upon the walls of our lives we scratched away to get at an understanding, no matter how ellusive, of....and we're all frickin junkies and love the images and need to constantly make them...

there is something profoundly sad about this, and something profoundly remarkable...no matter how our sophistication, we're still stuck in the caves of france, carving onto stone from berry stain the stories of who we are...

irony or doxology....both, the human hum

good on Parr

cheers
bob

david bowen

right on bobus.
congrats again to marina..

martin - an understated paragraph you have written.. great.. this blog post, along with a couple of others recently, has been much more alive.. i think that´s a testament to the exciting future your agency has with it´s new collection of snappers.. respect for the honest eyes.

david

James Ames

.. ...... ... ....!

Machu Pichhu. Hmmm.. What lense you used..

Man I have a question. Man! Do I have multiple questions! and sclerosis...

My first question is that if bangkok was eaten by cars how come there are all these people on the streets of that damned city harassing well behaving western tourists?

my second question is that why do you badger, Badger and many others consider photography as a language? It's like saying music is not music but a language (is there no harmony, melody, rhythm, colour, chaos,, but only easily understandable sounds that are explicable by easily understandable words.) god damn it's like hearing a protestant priest preaching his compassionate truth. anyway. let's say that photography is indeed a language so as not so intelligent reader of this "language" could you please, please translate your friends american night and shimmer of possibility into words. i mean the explanation can not be just about life shimmering with possibilities because if it is well then the whole nine yards/books are about the Title, about the 3 words that describe the extremely elegant visual language in, well written english... not as visual Chekhov of course, but, whatever, i want something more than duplication, biting, dots and commas.. so a translation please.

my third question is about this so called new photography (new painting as elina brotherus calls it). are there many "new" photographers that you can pin point and say that they have their own visual imagery (as nowadays it seems that people/photographers have nothing to say, can't speak, can not say, nothing to say about this society or that, as there are nothing, no things, except many many any things, money, sportsmen, artistes, and of course images/photographs and photographers as artists signed by galleries (like the musicians signed by stax during the 60's eh?)? for an example look at the images in the website/blog Conscientious and i bet that you can not name one photographer just by looking at the images as they do not have anything to say in anyway so (hornstra, morten andersen and alec soth... being the exceptions), the magic has simply disappeared especially if you don't know the names of the "new painters" or if you haven't read literary explanations of their so called language. or is it the way that it has always been? people copying and stealing. just like ALL of those artists borrowing from the germans? düsseldorf. hmmm. what did those artists tell about life, maybe something about photography and the vanity of it, but not any fucking thing about this life or that. bernd and hilla of course being the exceptions and that ceasefire guy.
todays photography is filled with pseudoscience (art as science and after that you suck my cock), is filled with the lack of visual ideas, photographers being really, really afraid, filled with the intellectual smallness like the "un"conscientious blog promotes, that the magnumblog promotes.
closest in describing photography by words (as photography ALWAYS NEEDS WORDS as it is not a very intelligent medium) was takuma nakahira in his book For a Language to Come. the only and biggest problem was and is that the language never came. it simply did not come even if we tried so now we're just lying, or more likely we're just gagging, trying to say sumthin'... where is the language they asked zczfrpkbvcxdggkhjdf, gagged, vomited, puked and after all the provoking they understood that there isn't a language, only our lives and oh oh oh the pathetic humanity and of course photography for the sake of it.

I am, but not as drunk as he was when he lost it, this language.

Op'

Hmmmm. Obviously photography doesn't speak to you then. Nevermind. You'll get over it. But, what are you blabbering about?

Op'

Bitter and cynical because you lost your 'photographic voice' somewhere down the line?? Be at peace with yourself Mr.James

Op'

Interesting series. Not my favourite 'Martin Parr' work I have to say, (not sure if satire alone makes a powerful, insightful series, and anyway, that's just my personal opinion), but photographers aren't gods and they're not infallible.
Strip away the Machu Pichhu content photographed here and you're left with what came to my mind immediately, 'a billion empty balconies facing the sun'.' (J.G Ballard). Leisure! And the demystification of everything.
Look forward to seeing the rest Mr.Parr. Thanks for sharing.

david bowen

james..

i´m reluctant to engage with your posts due to your first being so verbose and abusive..

however.. here goes.

i think that photography is a language.. music is a language.. in a similar way that body ´language¨ is a language..

although a sax refrain or foreboding landscape - even the raised eyebrow which your first post provoked in me - produces a feeling, in singular form they do not make a language any more than the word ´grumpy´ makes a language in itself.

art-forms are not a specific language like words and they need context...
....and i don´t think a photographic context has to be created with words..
it can be created with other photographs instead...
if that is the case, a purposefully and well executed essay or collection of photographs must constitute a language of some kind..

if a pair of jazz soloists play off each other are they not having a conversation of some kind?
when a guitarist mentions that they enjoy hearing their guitar ´sing´or ´talk´, would you argue that they are lying?

photography as a narrative tool has been well explored and to my mind is a clear form of language..
it´s not a specific or articulate language and does leave a great deal to our own interpretation and projective nature, but then don´t some drunken rambles also bring about that end?

that´s my opinion, in any case.
david

bobblack

james:

respectfully, i think you've dumped all the nuts into the same bowl and are now fishing around for which nut came from which bag....you see "language" is not only "words" my friend, but, about ways of communication...to be a real twit, from the dictionary:

.."(2) a systematic means of communicating ideas or feelings by the use of conventionalized signs, sounds, gestures, or marks having understood meanings (3): the suggestion by objects, actions, or conditions of associated ideas or feelings (4): the means by which animals communicate (5): a formal system of signs and symbols (as FORTRAN or a calculus in logic) including rules ...." etc....

last time i saw animals didnt yammer as i and yet they communication through language much more effectively than I write on these blogs....

one last bit to chew upon, much of your complaint and lamentation seems to be analogous of the person in, let us say (insert here random language) Russian using Russian to describe English....and i happened to live with both those languages in my life, so believe me, it's pretty sloppy business ;))...

incidentally, "spoken language" also has music and "harmony, melody, rhythm, colour, chaos.."...Joyce or Antunes, to name 2 magnificent word musicians.....

photographs do not need language to bulster, just as books do not need photographs to enliven (wasnt this the lesson we all learned around 9 or 10 when we started reading books as kids that didnt have pics??).....

how about some music, indeed, in this raukus juke??...

http://www.myspace.com/hypnoticbusiness

running
bob

bobblack

one last thought...about blogs and words...about photography and books....i'll quote here the extraordinary writer/book critic John Leonard (one of my childhood heros) who died last month...he was writing about books in this quote, but it could just as much be said about photographs/photographers...or the books and work of photographers...as a photographer and a writer myself, i've always felt the same as John....

"The books we love, love us back. In gratitude, we should promise not to cheat on them -- not to pretend we're better than they are; not to use them as target practice, agitprop, trampolines, photo ops or stalking horses; not to sell out scruple to that scratch-and-sniff infotainment racket in which we posture in front of experience instead of engaging it, and fidget in our cynical opportunism for an angle, a spin, or a take, instead of consulting compass points of principle, and strike attitudes like matches, to admire our wiseguy profiles in the mirrors of the slicks. We are reading for our lives, not performing like seals for some fresh fish."-john leonard

david bowen

i cheated on a magazine with a book once and regretted it instantly...
the book was just too thick.

fr.

when i visited MP about two years ago i was already familiar with your work Martin, and i partly tried a similar approach there. i especially enjoy your views of the restaurants in AC and the hot springs images, let alone the "touch the holy stone" shots. if you click on my name you will find one example of my try.

PS: the view from the hill on the other side of the valley is stunning too: the serpentine street which leads up is well visible from there, and it is roughly four times bigger than the actual site.

mike

Reading comments with interest... have some thoughts:

Bob, ahoy, friend.... when I read your comment that Parr and sui generis, that's my cue to mention Shore, Eggleston (whitney show is worth the trip) and commercial postcards...there is something about collection, a possessive frisson in the work as well, I think I could argue a Parr/Outerbridge connection as well. If sui generis, his pictures would be in a box under his bed, awaiting discovery by a psychiatrist, a la M. Tichy.

I'm going to call you out on the Magnum/bellweather idea, too... I don't see it. I see an extremely conservative organization, top-heavy with raw talent, musclebound, trying.

Here's the thing.... why don't they recruit grads from MIT media lab, or filmmakers, or screenwriters... or theorists or critics or writers. There is a monstrous void, and puny slideshows are not going to fill it, you know what I'm saying? The future is theirs to loose...

James Ames.... questions for you: why be a nitwit, and why not keep your oral copulation fantasies to yourself?

All: Happy Thanksgiving.

Joe

The future is theirs to loose...

Mike after Alec took over this blog i mentioned this place might now have a complex agenda. Your comment should be the last sentence in a list of gems that surface from this agenda.

I do now wonder if the blog has enough fidelity and bandwidth to keep forward traction or will it begin to spin a bit from the mentioned free-for-all efforts, killing the seminar climate and making it more of frat party.

I guess we have to wait and see, but i whole-heartily agree with what you say Mike, with one qualification; you’ve mentioned the ‘talent’ necessary for Magnum Version 4.0.... but to design the ‘feature list’ of benefits you could create from that diverse talent… now you’ve moved past innovation and moved into a new invention…. you’re talking about creating something that doesn't yet exist :-)
..

david bowen

mike n joe.

i´m not certain they need the extra people if they are capable of producing shorts of the quality they are currently doing.. the ´crime and punishment´piece, sadly not on display any longer, was a superb example of what they can produce already.

i guess one problem with recruiting a multimedia team and writers would be the expense.. obviously i have no idea of magnums balance sheet, and as such have no idea of the staff they could support.
certainly if they had a way of employing multifaceted staff it would be a superb development to progress in this direction.. since however long the MM boom lasts it is worth getting into.

one concern which mabe all photographers are currently having is how far to go in delivering what the editors want at the expense of what we enjoy doing.. and are good at.
fee´s go down and now i hear some editors are expecting photographers to sound record, write and even video as well..
while there must be a balance, so as not to put ourselves out of the market, i think it´s important to make some kind of stand against this kind of multi-commissioning which, to my mind, is making one person do the work of three.

fingers crossed that web based media will begin to reap the ad revenues of print journalism and we can all relax, since there will be money for specific and talented specialists.. and in the meantime i´m sticking to snapping.

from another angle, if they were looking to expand the agency to include writers and theorists as members.. maybe even film makers.. it would disappoint me.
i would much rather see the places filled by photographers.. who, arguably, are already theorists of varying quality and are most likely able to write to a sufficient quality as well.

it´s true that agencies are suffering and need to change as the weather changes over time..
it just depends how long the industry will take to settle, since getting dressed up for a blizzard when it´s only a quick snow shower is unwise.

Bob black

MIKE l:))))))

HAPPY THANKSGIVING MATE! :))))...as for Parr, ok, yes, totally agree...though i think Shore and Eggleston (brilliant geniuses both and am dripping in anticipation to get down to see the Eggleston show) are fundamental bones to our photographic life (Eggleston was actually, with Arbus, that got me hot for photography when i was in high school)...and what i think is the brilliance about Parr's work/aesthetic is the 'conflation'.....there is a seriouslessness to Parr that is more akin to the 'seriouslessness' to Mikhalov than to Shore and Eggleston...as for Magnum being the bellweather, i meant to Journalism/Traditional photography...not to my ideas or the greater working photographic world, ...poorly worded, my comment...in fact, i tend to gravitate much more closer to the world of Japan's "documentary" work or the work that Christian C and his boys/gals at Vu created (and now Magnum has a few of them as well, of which i think Vink was the first to jump ship)...Magnum could certainly use fresh insight./breath...and i could be happier if they ever took on "photographers" who were even more "out there"...writers/critics/performance artists, etc...why do you think i keep buzzing around this post ;))))))...dont get me wrong, im not interested in being a part of a group like Magnum (too big, too corporate, too straight), but I have enormous respect for many of their members...and I respect and love (even more importantly) a few of the members i've had a chance to get to know personally....i think if you take the people i've met or corresponded with, Dave Harvey, Chris Anderson, Jonas (not met, only write), and my first Magnum friend John vink, all 4 of them are quite rich and curious photographers and thinkers...and David is, for a photographer of his stature and accomplishment, far-seeing in terms of the types of photographers, books and exhibitions he's embracing and encouraging...now, will Magnum ever become the same stature creatively, aesthetically, as an individual artist or smaller collective (like my buds at SMOKE over in france)?...no, not possible...BUT...are they able to generate new and original ideas and move the art of photographing story tellers into the future...hell yes...if i didnt think so, i'd have jumped ship long ago...

incidentally, the recent work by Peress vis-a-vis Guernica and written about by Berger, is an example of what im talking about ...Peress work there is as powerful and important and "fresh" as the work of the brilliant Lebanon/NY based Walid RAAd and his ingenious The Atlas Group...do you know his brilliant work??...

anyway, maybe Magnum will never aspire to the kind of thinking and "document" based work that Raad has accomplished...but, who knows....

in the end i dont really care about Magnum but about photography...and photographers...and just as much as the work of Beuys and Raad affect and influence and condition my own photographic work, so too many of the folk here:

in the end what matters is to tell stories and how to tell the richest story possible....

so much yet to achieve :)))

magnum is neither the past nor the future, it's just a part of a specific part of the photographic world...

the photo world loves to either LOVE magnum or HATE magnum, i've never understood either posit....

i think simply: make work that speaks, the rest, dross...

hugs and hello from marinka too :)
bob

Joe

When i think of Magnum i think about IBM just before the invention of the PC. I think about how IBM rested on a concept of ‘computing’ when the competitors understood it was now about ‘interacting’.

It’s not an accident that a household name associated with all things photographic in the past is now the third thing many think of after ice cream and prophylactics. Times change and things happen, but some things don’t have to happen.

Magnum has assets on its balance sheet that you can’t measure in monetary ways. It has a team of ambassadors to an activity that’s as common to humans as birthday parties. It has an army that understands how to render life on two-dimensional space in ways no other force can. Show me a movie that really moved you and i’ll show you a director of photography that ‘yes’ actually composed how those scenes were shot.

Magnum has the asset of credibility that if they supported satellite virtual universities with the technology that is now available we would see a Magnum University in any place that there was a critical mass of interest in photography (is there anyone not interested in photography?)… with each Magnum member being a virtual Dean of that university and a self-perpetuating cycle of students and alumni… with virtual gallery competitions between each virtual institution, and a wealth of images produced that would make any stock agency cry… it makes me cry to see this intangible balance sheet react so slowly to these and all other leadership opportunities that are possible to them. Magnum actually has the economy of scale to do so much more. This makes the cost of participation per photographer to be both trivial and maybe even creatively beneficial.

And of course these are just the ideas that would ensure that Magnum clawed back more of that feeling of leadership and authority with the two-dimensional visual media, it doesn’t even begin to talk about the ‘monitory’ channels of opportunity.

I guess if I had to sum it up quickly I would say that Magnum is a wasting asset. It’s got all the goodwill that it needs to be (stay?) a leader and a commercial force to be reckoned with…. now and indefinitely with any visual media rendered on two-dimensional space,… but it needs to unite all people relevant to this ambition in a mutually beneficial way, this mutually beneficial way ensures that it's all benefit to all involved without the cost.
..

James

nice photos martin, can't wait for the rest. looks like you had fun!

O-JJ-O

This´s a fucking real, irony and funny social documentary about the mass touri$m.
A few weeks ago i read an extraordinary interview of Anne-Celine Jaeger about your work and life on the book Image Makers - Image Takers...

All the best from Cusco
http://o-jj-o.blogspot.com/

Stupid Photographer

For comparison, here is the flip side of the Machu Pichu coin, by Moises Saman:

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/12/08/world/americas/20081208PERU_index.html

My stupid hat is off to him!