A truism, almost an embarrassment, is that we know far fewer people than we pretend to—fewer artists still, and far fewer careers. I read that the influential British photographer Martin Parr, a central figure in contemporary photography and a prominent member of Magnum Photos, has died at 73 in his home in Bristol. I didn’t know him, and if I ever saw one of his images, I erased it, discarded it without ceremony. That kind of aesthetic simply doesn’t call to me. And yet, when death arrives to reclaim what has always belonged to it, we look again—this time with gentler, almost penitential eyes.

His passing has triggered a wave of tributes across the world. Colleagues, critics, and institutions have emphasized his decisive role in renewing the documentary language since the 1980s. I scroll through his photographs once more, searching for some point of contact. Nothing. They still don’t appeal to me. And I’m fully aware that taste is personal and doesn’t decide much.

Parr achieved international visibility with The Last Resort (1983–1985), a series that portrayed the summers on the Merseyside coast through irony and saturated colors. That leap into color—audacious at the time within British documentary practice, and one of the reasons it makes me narrow my eyes—marked an aesthetic and conceptual rupture. He went on to develop projects such as The Cost of Living, Small World, and Common Sense, where he dissected mass tourism, the middle class, consumerism, and the frictions of contemporary culture. His style—deliberately frontal, humorous, and sometimes uncomfortable—sparked ongoing debates about ethics and empathy in photographic representation. My humble contribution:

Following news of his death, numerous institutions have highlighted both the critical force behind his work and his ability to locate poetry, absurdity, and truth in the smallest gestures of daily life. And although some accused him, during his lifetime, of adopting a condescending tone toward his subjects, a large share of the critical community has reclaimed his gaze as an invitation to examine, without filters, the visual and social contradictions of our time.

Beyond his prolific output, Parr leaves behind the Martin Parr Foundation, created in 2014 to preserve his archive and support emerging photographers. His death at 73—caused by a cancer diagnosed in 2021—closes one of the most singular careers in contemporary photography. His work, implacable, vital, and human at its root, will continue to tilt, for years to come, the angle from which we look at the world.