The Work

Uit Die Blou Van Onse Hemel | South Africa

 (Christopher Parkes)

Hout Bay seen from Chapman’s Peak, January 2013

The titles of this post is the opening line to the apartheid-era national anthem spoken in Afrikaans (It translates as “out of the blue of our heaven”), a legacy the country still hasn’t quire settled with…. but for all it’s “spiky bits” that’s thing about South Africa: it gets inside of you. It’s wild and beautiful in a way that you can’t understand unless you’ve lived it and breathed it. It’s about being presented with unique majestic panoramas that are simultaneously full of  dangerous creatures (including some of the locals).It’s that friction between it’s natural beauty and it’s cultural legacy of racial, tribal and cultural tension and the struggle to resolve those conflicts that to a point defines the country’s unique personality. More photo’s after the break...

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Machiavellian Kickstarter | Commercial Fashion Videography and Photography


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Nichole + Michael | Surrey Wedding Photographer

The privilege of being a wedding photographer is that you’re allowed a window, a door,  into what is for many people the most emotional day of their lives. This is the reason I love shooting weddings, sharing and being drawn to those special moments when people reveal themselves in a way they wouldn’t ordinarily. Nichole and Michael travelled all the way back from Singapore to share their day with their family and friends, and a very happy and emotive day it was too, with the added cherry of ’90′s garage being the mainstay of the evening dancing. Grab a hanky!

Venue: Botley’s Mansion

 (Christopher Parkes)

 

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T.W.i.N.S | London Music Photographer

T.W.i.N.S are East End music duo Lawrence and Hugo. This shot drew on a range of images of the Kray Twins, another notorious East End double act (without the electro glow drumsticks).What I enjoyed most about this shoot-apart from the fact they both brought great ideas to start with-is that it was lit so simply, with just a single, bare Profoto flash head. After shooting multi light setups at PhotoFusion, it was nice to be challenged with something so stripped down and I like how the images feel similarly stark and duotone.

You can hear more from T.W.i.N.S here on SoundCloud.

You can see more of T.W.i.N.S here on Youtube.

You can read more from T.W.i.N.S here on Twitter.

You can buy T.W.i.N.S here on iTunes.

 (Christopher Parkes)

Oh, ALSO… this was my first published work on iTunes!

 (Christopher Parkes)

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Sam + Phil | Surrey Wedding Photographer

Phil is almost a colleague of mine: we’ve worked on so many Asperity presentations together, it’s like seeing an old friend each time, so I was delighted when I was asked to be the photographer for his and  Sam’s festively themed wedding in the midst of winter last December, just before Christmas. They took over Worplesden Memorial Hall and festooned it in bespoke festive decorations, including a massive Christmas tree, fairy lights, kids disco, and best of all a “All I Want For Christmas Is You” singalong music video populated by their family and friends. To paraphrase the bard:

“The weather outside was frightful, but what was inside was delightful.”

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There Is No “I” In Team | London Business Photography

Trying to reinvent the wheel is a tall order. How, as a photographer, do you take a well-worn trope like the corporate headshot and try and do something even vaguely fresh with it? Companies often want something fresh but the combination of preserving brand integrity and the approachability necessary for any companies visual presentation, and it becomes hard to find something that’s really adventurous. It takes trust between the photographer and the client to take a step and a risk, and luckily, after building a two year working relationship with Asperity, THE market leader in employee benefits, that was something I could do.

I had done a set of team shots for the comany a year before, but wasn’t crazy happy about what I had produced. I had fallen back on old tropes despite my best efforts, and wanted something that was slicker, fresher, that presented the company and people in that company who I knew and liked, in a way that did the company’s personality justice while still being cohesive and professional. Drawing, as always, from love of film, I remembered the famous Trainspotting poster and proposed something similar when the next set of team shots were commissioned. I was delighted when it got the OK, and spent two days at Asperity HQ shooting about 500 images against a plain background, then editing and stitching each image into-best of all- a PSD that could be updated and changed as needed. Below you’ll see some of the results from that effort; enjoy and have a great day everyone! (Christopher Parkes) (more…)