Trent Parke’s epic and personal body of work The Black Rose premiered to great acclaim at the Art Gallery of South Australia in March 2015. Created over seven years, the series explores universal themes – birth, death, love, loss, memory and the passing of time. It started out as a conversation with some of his fellow Magnum members on the concept of Home. Parke was inspired to understand his own story and to excavate his own histories, which had become buried under day-to-day life for many years. Despite the very personal nature of his investigation, Parke’s work reflects more broadly on our attempts to make sense of personal stories, dreams and chance. Stills Gallery is delighted to be able to present a selection of works from this significant series.

Parke is a storyteller who makes art out of everyday occurrences. His responses to daily life are raw, fast and intuitive. His understanding of the photographic medium is profound – whether it’s the nature of light and how it is rendered on film, the ability to anticipate an action before it occurs and be ready to capture it, or the recognition of the narrative and emotional potentials and of an image or group of images. In The Black Rose at AGSA Parke also included stories, diary entries and video works. Much like Life, the exhibition unfolded over time and space – revealing itself over a number of rooms, each with a particular theme, the universe, home, death etc., the viewer drawn to make their own connections between the images – the stark white face of a child, the dust strewn back of an ornate mirror, ants devouring a black butterfly. Each image builds upon another and the eye becomes alive to details and visual echoes.

Exhibition runs: October 7 – 14 November, 2015

Stills Gallery
36 Gosbell Street
Paddington NSW 2021
Australia

Hat Tip

Gotham From Above from David Geffin on Vimeo.

Imagine leaning out of an open door of a helicopter 7,500 feet over New York City on a very dark and chilly night…

And seeing this:

For Vincent Laforet who was recently on assignment for Men’s Health Magazine, proposed shooting the city from an unusually high altitude so that they could capture the lines that are formed by the streets of New York at night. For the article about psychology and him feeling that from a high altitude the streets looked like brain “synapses”, this was his scariest “photo mission” of his career.

Helicopters vibrate pretty significantly and you have to be able to shoot at a relatively high shutter speed (even with tools like a gyroscope) and that makes it incredibly difficult to shoot post sunset.

Armed with cameras such as the Canon 1DX and the Mamiya Leaf Credo 50 MP back- both capable of shooting relatively clean files at 3200 & 6400 ISO and a series of f2.8 to f1.2 lenses including a few tilt-shift lenses (see image above.)

This flight required extensive planning and special clearances – we were actually flying ABOVE all of the airline traffic landing at JFK, LGA and Newark airports … Imagine leaning out of an open door of a helicopter 7,500 feet over New York City on a very dark and chilly night…

And seeing this:It is both exhilarating and terrifying all at once…

Let’s just start off by saying this was the scariest helicopter “photo mission” of my career…

And the most beautifulI have to admit that it was very odd to be looking at airplanes – big ones: jetliners – flying beneath you!I’ve flown on “aerial missions” over The Big Apple more than 50 times over the past decade and a half, and I’ve flown several hundred hours of photo flights around the world… And this was by far the most frightening flight of all.

And nothing “eventful” whatsoever happened.

My cameras & I were safely harnessed in at all times. The pilot was top notch. The wind was … Well it was a factor.But the real scary part was that there’s just simply nothing quite like leaning out of that chopper over the sea of darkness and light, held in only by a full body harness…There is no chance that you will fall – the harness is tried and true. But you DO think about the fall.

And you think about it again … And again … And how long you would have to think things over from that height all the way down to the ground below.

And then you start to think about the helicopter, and how it’s not exactly the most aerodynamically stable aircraft up there in the first place …. But I digress.

Back to the Pictures! (That’s what I kept telling myself in case you were wondering…) Ultimately this is a flight I will never forget. These are some of the most unique images that I have ever photographed of New York City in nearly two decades… And I’m not sure if, and, or when I’ll ever go back up that high above Gotham…But something tells me this won’t be my last flight up there… Just maybe not THAT high…The complexity of this city is even more impressive from above than it is from closeup on the ground as your can truly appreciate its incredible scale.I hope you enjoy these as much as I enjoyed making them. You can see a pretty cool video by David Geffin of how these were made, including some of the gear used up there, here:Had we gone just a few thousand more feet up (around 11,000-12,000 feet) we would have needed oxygen masks!

One veteran pilot that we often fly with refused to go up to the altitude we were at … He said that “helicopters are not meant to live in that realm” – which I kind of agree with following this flight.

I had only gone this high once before, but that was over the desert and during the daytime – a very different experience. I still remember it being 120 degrees on the ground and in the 60s at high altitude and how you could feel the temperature change rapidly as we climbed up there…

This flight required extensive planning and special clearances – we were actually flying ABOVE all of the airline traffic landing at JFK, LGA and Newark airports …

I have to admit that it was very odd to be looking at airplanes – big ones: jetliners – flying beneath you!

Ultimately this is a flight I will never forget.

Source

And big shouts to that North Carolina fella Jack Oat!

Give that girl a shout!

Margarita | Tiwtter

She bakes, models and has a career in accounting…

It would only be right that we give her a shout out for that over time grind!

Next time we’re up top, we’re gonna need some cupcakes from Sweet Hii Creations!

Give her a shout on Twitter | @ErotiCoolie

We thought that it would only be right that we give her a quick shout out and ask her to let us know what she’s got on deck this year…

Some of you may remember seeing her in the flick that the homies Big Sean and Chris Brown laced for ‘My Last’

Big Sean – My Last ft. Chris Brown from GB on Vimeo.

YG’s ‘Patty Cake’ visual

YG – Patty Cake from Alex Nazari on Vimeo.

2 Chainz’s ‘Spend It’

2Chainz – Spend It from Alex Nazari on Vimeo.

Or the French montana & Slim Thug’s ‘Buku Money’ all in 2011

French Montana Ft Slim Thug Buku Money (Official Video) from GrillzHipHopTM on Vimeo.

And for those that missed that, you might have seen her the infamous WSHH UnCut vid last year

Cropped tees, triangular cutouts, and vibrant colors mark the brand’s latest offering and new direction from their last collection, and geometric emphasis gives the collection both a retro and futuristic vibe.

With a little history behind La Perla and Marlies Dekkers, Chloe’s on target for Spring with the fashion world at large’s obsession with all things sport.

Twitter | Facebook

More About Seannie Cameras

Artist Statement

Being a photographer these days, is a commodity…With the advent of digital cameras, and the evolution of cell phone technology leveling the bar for consumers-turned-artists, it’s easy to call yourself a photographer…I have always, firmly believed, that there is a difference between a photographer, and someone that takes pictures…

A photographer does more than just, capture a scene, they take an ordinary scene, situation, scenario, and make you interested in what is happening within the confines of the frame…They find beauty in the everyday, capture it, and make you reflect on it, and yourself…You don’t need a fancy camera, or years of study at an accredited arts school, but it starts with finding something within your environment that interests you, and start exploring it with your camera…Someone that takes pictures, is an observer, someone that is only there to document what is happening in the scene, and there is no thought to composition, content, angle, light, or any other detail of what a photographer is thinking about before they click the shutter…

The world is full of pictures, and picture takers, but genuine photographers that care about the craft, the emotion one gets from gazing on an indescribable photo, and the endless pursuit of mastering your art, they are going the way of Polaroid film…

Don’t be afraid, step out of your comfort zone, go places you wouldn’t normally go, be an explorer…

Stay tuned, stay creative.

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Peep out some of his work!

It would only be right that you saw what Olivier Zahm, editor-in-chief of Purple Fashion magazine captured Crystal Renn beautifully in the Spring 2013 lingerie campaign for Agent Provocateur