Trent Parke - An Observer Of Our World!

I examined Australian contemporary photographer Trent Parke for my presentation due to his highly distinctive and vivid visual signature. While researching his approach and and style, I came to recognise that I share some similarities in relation to intention and approach. From my recent experience and observation of photography, as a medium of mass production and consumption, I have recognised two distinctive approaches:

*Photographers who construct and attempt to control their world, and then seek to represent and capture it visually

OR

*Photographers who wish to observe their world, with no intervention

I find myself to be increasingly in the latter category, gaining the greatest interest and inspiration from simply observing the world around me.

Trent Parke's series of work, 'Minutes to Midnight', observes and reveals an aspect of Australia that many of us are unfamiliar with, bringing us particularly dense and alluring images. The images captured in this series were a product of a two year long 90,000 km journey across Australia, capturing a psychological portrait of this nation. The aspect of Parke's work which makes it distinctive is his revelation and capacity to capture the transformative power of Australian light. This is a detail which I think would advance the artistic quality and observational capacity of my photographic works.

Below are images from this series 'Minutes to Midnight':