Oxford

First up I would of expected better from Parr but were talking tourist snap quality for many of these images (im from Oxford and really the subjects chosen are highly generic). Lacking in the "eye" and humor that one would expect from Parr. Very few images are nice. Now...whoever designed the layout for the book and binding should not be allowed near book designing ever again. When choosing double page images one would think that faces would be something to avoid. I will let these images speak for themselves. Back it goes. First time ive ever returned a photo book!

This book is spectacularly disappointing. I am a great admirer of Parr’s work and own and enjoy owning almost all his books. That’s why I bought this one, even paying the higher Amazon.co.uk price (than the price on Amazon.es, where I live) just to get it as early as possible. I look at his other works all the time and wish I could even begin to imitate his, unfortunately, inimitable style.This book contains none of the usual Parr themes or techniques. And that’s fine in the sense that an artist like Parr can evolve and explore any way he jolly well likes. But one would expect the subtlety, the irony and the respectfully distant jeering to still be present, even in his new chosen style. And if not, well the colour at least. Or the empathy. Or the absence of empathy!But there is just nothing. The man who couldn’t be copied has produced an expensive volume of uninteresting snaps, which follow none of his stated philosophies. He doesn’t find things extraordinary in the ordinary, just ordinary things in the ordinary, albeit, with a picturesque backdrop.I know that Parr has never hidden his willingness to do commercial work for money. Why wouldn’t he? We all have to eat. But this looks like a badly put together tradesman’s illustrated catalogue, or a secondary school pupil’s project.Don’t buy this book until you see a copy in a library first. I’d send mine back to Amazon but the postage cost would be prohibitive.Amazingly disappointed.

One would think it that if a photographer of Martin Parr's stature and mastery of technique was let loose on a subject of such potential richness as Oxford University life he would produce something worthwhile. Instead what you get for your money is a series of cliched, stereotypical images and visual ideas long since much better done by successive generations of artists, writers and other photographers. The book is breath-taking in its lack of creativity and failure to respond to its subject, let alone interpret it. Its view of student/staff life and supposed 'rituals' is so partial and limited that the book's only use is as an example of how not to carry through an interpretive photographic project. Expect to see innumerable copies, barely read, on the shelves of Oxfam bookshops in the near future, marked down to £2.99p., which is as low as they usually go.

What a wasted opportunity. The collection's about Oxford University, not 'Oxford', and it lazily sets about perpetuating stereotypes of exclusivity and wealth and tradition, with zero insight. How bizarre to focus exclusively on this and ignore the context. Anyone who knows Oxford or comes at it without preconceptions understands that the evolving dynamic tension between the university and the wider city is what's really interesting about the place. Especially at a time of extreme social inequality, with colleges expanding in areas that have the worst housing and affordability problems in the UK, when the city has spent years building a high-end shopping complex in a centre that turns into a city of homeless people at night. Surely any artist would jump at that as the relevant and substantial subject here. Instead the best Parr can offer is a snap of Simon Armitage in a gown stood next to a Tesco bag. Really.

I received a damaged copy. It is very upsetting.