Tuesday, 9 December 2025, 12:25
Martin Parr was a British photographer, one of the most influential and imitated artists of today, who revolutionised the way we see Malaga city and the Costa del Sol during his trip to the province in 2022. Parr died in his home in Bristol on 5 December, at the age of 73.
He was photographing the unseen Malaga while everyone else was looking the other way. No sooner had he set foot in the city than he received calls from international magazines asking him to cover a historic event – the death of Queen Elizabeth II.
The British photographer, however, turned down all commissions. He wanted to look at Malaga. For several days, the Magnum agency photographer moved between the city of Malaga and the municipality of Mijas to capture their life and irony in full colour. The images now form part of his eternal legacy.
A year after his stay in Malaga in September 2022, a hundred of his photographs were exhibited at Museo de Málaga under the title MálagaEXPRESS – an exhibition produced by Centro Andaluz de la Fotografía and organised by Instituto Andaluz de las Artes Plásticas y Visuales. Martin Parr captured the leisure, people and food of the place in the form of a travelogue.
His images are very different from those that a tourist would take. They show the empty tables of ‘chiringuitos’, with the remains of food and drink; the sardine skewers between octopus legs on the embers; a tray of typical Malaga dessert ‘locas’; the Romany costumes for eight euros in a souvenir shop; tourists on a terrace with a carefree gesture; a man selling snails in front of the Huelin market; a lady cleaning next to the famous letters on the Malagueta beach; and a couple sunbathing surrounded by colourful unicorn and dolphin pedal boats.
Martin Parr arrived in the province in the middle of the festivity of La Victoria, which is why his photos show street festivities, flamenco dances and marvellous snapshots, such as the one of a woman who seems ready for the fiesta with the same gesture as the Virgin who frames her behind a canvas. Always with irony, focusing on the contrasts and tensions of a modern life dominated by leisure and consumption, Parr strikes the challenging balance between tradition and new customs that dominates Malaga. “One of the most striking things was seeing the fish in the markets,” he said on a later visit to Malaga. “Also seeing how they taught children to fight bulls in the La Malagueta bullring,” he added.
He immersed himself in the streets of Malaga, but also among its people. In his portraits one could recognise actor Salva Reina, artists Javier Calleja and Juanjo Fuentes, avant-garde dancer La Chachi, veteran singer Fosforito (recently deceased), chef José Carlos García and even mayor Francisco de la Torre and president of the provincial authority Francisco Salado. This collage will forever link the name of one of the most outstanding photographers of his generation to Malaga.
Martin Parr is globally renowned for revolutionising the concept of documentary photography in the 1980s, changing the black and white image associated until then with serious and rigorous field work for vibrant and even saturated colour to record the everyday, with a flash even in full sunlight to bring out the tones even more. “Here there is sun all year round, the colours are more present, something that is very important for the people,” he said, alluding to the colours and light of Malaga.