The Last Resort: Photographs of New Brighton

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And, maybe because of this softness, Wood’s images are liked by the people they depict – even when they’re shown out partying and ‘looking for love’ in the Chelsea Reach, then the local nighttime hotspot. Secondly there’s the wider aim which helped Marshall get support for the project – the attempt to regenerate the area through the arts. Even so, it’s fair to say that each photographer has seen the town differently and brought out different facets of its life, despite recording the same places, and sometimes even the same faces. Our historic working class, normally dealt with generously by documentary photographers, becomes a sitting duck for a more sophisticated audience.

Steering a risky course between impartiality and voyeurism, Parr observed the slowly decaying and crumbling town of New Brighton as well as the holidaymakers that frequented the town with a new and disturbing perspective.Since The Last Resort, Parr has continued to develop his technique, using the seaside as a ‘laboratory’ for his photography experiments.

I’m interested in the ambiguity and contradictions that I can see and finding ways to articulate that through photography.Less noted perhaps is the significance of the relation between this crude industrial machinery and the remnants of better times, such as the iron railing (where the sunbather’s towel now hangs) and the ornate bandstand in the background. The Last Resort is Martin Parr’s most iconic work, showing early colour photography shot around the seaside town of New Brighton from 1983 to 1985.