Utterly Lazy and Inattentive : Martin Parr in Words and Pictures

Author: Parr, Martin

Individual photographers

Published on 12 November 2026 by Penguin Books Ltd (Penguin) in the United Kingdom.

Paperback | 312 pages
209 x 155 x 24 | 604g

That’s very much one of my techniques: just hang around. Loitering with intent.

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. In his lifetime, Martin would publish over one hundred photobooks on subjects from seaside resorts to smoking. In this book, for the first and only time, Martin tells his own story, in his own words.

This is the definitive account of a great photographer’s work, life and times. It gathers over 150 of Martin’s photographs with his recollections and reflections, his distinctive voice delicately captured by his friend, the writer Wendy Jones. 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. As society changes over the decades, Martin’s particular passions remain: crowds and queues, fetes and placards, bad weather on beaches. Looking at the world through his eyes and his lens, we come away seeing Martin Parr – and ourselves – a little differently.