Martin Parr

British photographers born near the end of World War II came of age steeped in the country's strong tradition of social documentary photography, which had originated in the nineteenth century and was carried on through the work of Bill Brandt, Roger Mayne, and others. For the new generation, the trick was to create pictures that looked at Britain's stringently hierarchical society in fresh ways. By the early 1980s, the refinement of color film technology had provided the first element of a new documentary style. Photographers who began looking at members of the middle classes, not just those above or below, provided the second element. The third was the incorporation of a sense of humor into the work.
Parr has carved out a career using photography to satirize the behavior and mores of all of Britain's social classes. In this picture of people at a lunch counter at a popular beach resort, he captures the various responses of beachgoers to the anticipation of eating: determination, boredom, patience, apprehension, and near aggression. These partially clothed, sun–baked vacationers are several steps removed from their composed everyday personas.