JULIE BULLARD by Nadia Lee Cohen and Martin Parr - Fashion Photography Book for Art Collectors & Photography Enthusiasts - Perfect for Coffee Table Decor and Creative Inspiration

Product Description

Nadia Lee CohenMartin Parr101

Julie Bullard

1990



1970eBayScarlett Carlos ClarkeFrankie Park



※




JULIE BULLARD, a work of photographic fiction by Nadia Lee Cohen and Martin Parr. And, yes, you read that correctly. Nadia Lee Cohen (Women, HELLO My Name Is, the Kim Kardashian Christmas video) has teamed up with Martin Parr (The Last Resort, The Cost of Living, over 100 more books and no Kim Kardashian videos) and they have indeed made a book.

Martin is Nadia’s favourite photographer. She likes his work so much she wanted to be in his pictures. To be more precise, Nadia wanted to be a character in a Martin Parr photographed book. She wanted to be Julie Bullard.

The actual Julie Bullard was my childhood babysitter and possibly the first woman I ever saw in real life with naturally blonde, curly hair. She was my first introduction to glamour in any form. I was starstruck. Memories of her clothes, hair, makeup and home represent the essence of Britain in the 1990s and, for me, there was no one other than Martin to photograph the fragmented re-creation of that fondly remembered warm environment.

And so Martin signed on to take the photographs in the way only he can: 

It was a nice surprise to be invited. I was intrigued to join her on this journey of childhood memories, and to try and capture that sense of innocence.

The book is designed as a late-seventies photo album. It is very closely modelled on an example acquired from eBay, complete with faux leather spongy board covers and a vintage gold metal spiral binding. The photographs are classic Martin Parr – only the subjects have been stylised. Julie Bullard (Nadia Lee Cohen), her sister Jane (played by Scarlett Carlos Clarke) and her mother, Sharon (Frankie Park), all have familial prosthetic noses. The sets are dressed, the characters costumed, the food prepared – it is a full on fantasy of a very real looking world.

The photographs are better than you would expect to find in a family album. They are Martin Parr pictures after all! They are perfectly pitched, however, as a faux documentary. Over the course of the album, a story of an entirely fictional, yet believable, life emerges.

There are 101 photographs in the book.

Spoiler alert: The fictional Julie dies at the end. Note: the real Julie Bullard, Nadia’s one-time babysitter, is alive and well and finds the whole thing very amusing. In fact it is worth saying that none of the events or characters are in any way real!

The photographs are numbered in the book and captioned by the fictional Julie in the back of the book.

Caption for the above funeral wake spread: “You’d think Mr Kipling himself had died.”

In many ways the book is a continuation of Nadia’s multi-character photobook HELLO My Name Is. The difference is that Martin documented the goings-on as you would expect him to approach real life events. The success of the book is that you recognise the set ups, read the relationships and truly care about the fictional Julie Bullard.