There are few personalities among contemporary photographers as popular, influential and respected (as well as so frequently criticized) as Martin Parr. This is not due solely to his own extensive body of work, which has played and continues to play a major role in the evolution of both British and international documentary photography, influencing countless photographers worldwide, but also thanks to his other activities. For Martin Parr is also an outstanding curator, displaying a brilliant erudition in the history and current photography and a sense for discovering forgotten and underappreciated works in the prepa- ration of various exhibitions, including the preparation last year of the entire program of the Rencontres d'Arles festival, through which (together with Francois Hébel) he succeeded in salvaging the festival's reputation, after the damage it sustained in the 1990s. He is a great proponent of photobooks, and in tandem with Gerry Badger he edited a two-volume project for Phaidon, The Photobook: A History, where he included also several Czech works. He is an ardent collector of photographs and other objects that feature photographs, especially those that have mostly stood outside of the interest of other collectors, such as for instance kitsch photographs on badges, trays and plates, extraordinarily banal photo postcards (publishing some of these in book form), and even wristwatches bearing the portrait of Saddam Hussein. Many of these curios have been presented at various exhibitions, or as books. In recent years, he has also been involved in making documentary films, where, as with his photographs, he makes ample use of his dry English humor and subtle irony. Until now he has shared his experience mainly through creative workshops and as a guest lecturer at various schools, but since 2004 he has dedicated himself to pedagogic activity more systematically as Professor of Photography at the University of Wales in Newport. For the past eleven years he has been member of the legendary Magnum Agency, and he has published a number of books of documentary photography, a series of original advertising and fashion photographs, exhibiting at the International Center for Photography n New York, the Folkwang Museum in Essenu, the Barbican Art Gallery in London, the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television in Bradford, the Queen Sophia Center in Madrid and the European House of Photography in Paris. He is an international celebrity, but his behavior bears no trace of any kind of the caprices of stardom.(full article is available after purchasing a subscription - not available now)