When Harry Met...Martin Parr

What happened when Harry Borden met the man who changed the face of British documentary photography?

I first saw Martin Parr’s work in 1986, when I was in my late teens and a student at Plymouth College of Art & Design. I wasn’t particularly diligent about attending exhibitions, but a selection of photos from his series The Last Resort was on display at the local arts centre. At that time, most documentary work was shot in black & white on 35mm cameras using natural light, but these were bright, colourful, medium-format pictures shot with fill-in flash. They represented a seismic change in the genre.

I was blown away by the pictures and I think the series still stands up as an important body of work. I’ve been a fan of Parr’s work ever since.

Thirty years later, in January 2016, I was given the opportunity to shoot a portrait of him. The commission came out of the blue from The Independent. I was offered next to nothing to do the shoot, but I really wanted to meet him. I asked my assistant, Amy Romer, to join me. I said I didn’t have much of a budget, but she said she wanted do it for the same reason I did.