"I like to tell truth. I don't want to candy-coat the scene," Alan Parks tells me from his studio in Homer. "I do social documentary. Honest images, straight shooting and darkroom work. No bells and whistles or frills, just pretty straight."Parks' photography may be "straight," but by no means is it mundane. His images convey an energy and sponaneity that firmly situate the viewer in the scene. His currently running exhibit, "Streets," is a collection of his recent work, the result of four months mired in Seattle's street scene, and five weeks in Mexico, documenting the everyday lives of the lower class and other interesting people he's come across. His Seattle work focuses on urban street culture, and his Mexico work includes images from both urban and rural settings.
Parks describes his work as, "environmental portraiture, people in their 'natural' environment. It goes far beyond sterile studio shots, and gets to the root of straight photography." Parks has done little studio work in his 25-year photography career. Though his workspace has a studio, he feels he's found a higher purpose for the room. "I'm using it for storage," he says.
His work is currently showing in Hal Gage's "Gallery", a small showing room designed to promote Alaskan fine-art photography of all types. "It's pretty much a freebie thing for the artists," says Gage, "because I don't charge commissions on work sold. They have to take care of the particulars - get the work ready to show, pay to have their invitations made, postage, refreshments. Otherwise, I pay for the rent and the lights, and try to man it as best as I can." Gage opened the gallery about a year ago as a complement to his own photographic work, and has shown 11 artists since, mostly in solo shows.
Gage says he's been aware of Park's work for a couple of years. "He'd gotten awards, and shown consistently good work, and I saw his work at the Rarefied Light show last year. Then I met him at a meeting in Homer of all the photographers - all six of us were there," he quips, "and from that, I saw his work and liked it. And I was aware that he had this body of work - street photography..."
Gage compares Parks' work to scultpture made of found objects, images so spontaneous they leave you with the impression that the subjects didn't even know the camera was pointed at them. In reality, Parks does set up a number of his shots, in addition to engaging the subjects in dialogue. Walking the streets with his camera, immersed in the action and unpredictability of everyday life, Parks seeks interesting subjects to photograph.
"One thing I do differently from many photographers is promote dialogue," says Parks. Engaging his subjects in conversation, he says, adds texture to his work, and Parks has begun to include these short conversations with some of his shots.
- "That's why some of those shots are so successful," he says, "becuase I asked them to move just a little bit so the shot would be framed better, or to capture an interesting background."
Parks tells the story behind the dialogue and picture, "Man II". "For the first shot, he stuck his tongue out, and that guy had a gigantic tongue," he says, "For the second shot, I crouched down, and he looked at me and knew I was serious. Then I asked him to move just a few feet, and he didn't want any more taken."
While he doesn't "set up" shots with elaborate precision, Parks will often ask a subject to move to improve the composition. "That's why some of those shots are so successful," he says, "becuase I asked them to move just a little bit so the shot would be framed better, or to capture an interesting background."
Parks' greatest interest is in urban street photography and his four months in Seattle led to a fine collection of images. While Parks is self-conscious about his own cultural background in relation to his subjects, he feels his work is important and that he is generally welcome in the settings he chooses to document. "There's some reason I'm photographing people on the street, and I guess you could think of it as some kneejerk liberal thing," says Parks about his time on the street. "I mean, I'm some middle-class white guy tromping around the street with the camera, but sometimes you need to to get that image. Sometimes people look at you like, 'what's going on here?'" he says.
Parks feels he does a good job of documenting street life, but he's careful to point out that no matter how intense the images, a great deal of the reality is lost in not living it. "There's no way I know what it's like sleeping on the ground, going through dumpsters, or panhandling for alcohol or drugs - it's just not in my experience. I mean, you get a feeling for whatever you're documenting, but I've never lived it."
Mexico was a five-week intensive rapidfire shooting spree that left him with 2,700 images to sort through, of which he says probably only one matched his strict criteria for a perfect shot. "I was working with both 35mm and 6x7 negatives, and it took me about ten days just to get the shooting down, " Parks says of his experience there. "The light in Mexico is much different from Alaska, much harsher. In Alaska, there's a lot of soft light, and in summer you really get a lot. In Mexico, the light was harsh, intense, changing."
Parks recently returned to his home in Homer, where he's embarked on a project to document, as he calls them, "the old-timers," people who moved to Homer early on, but who are rapidly dying from old age. His work will appear at a show in Homer, entitled "Voices and Images of a Community," and will feature Parks' documentary photos accompanied by short stories, essays, and poems on life in the Bay, and writing on the social and economic history of the area.
Parks says this project will pose particular challenges, becuase most of his subjects in Homer are neighbors and acquaintances. "It's difficult to photograph people you know, because usually when you take pictures, the subjects don't like the finished work," he says. But Gage remains positive about Parks' abilities, saying, "He's got big plans, and I think he can carry them off."
- Mexico... left him with 2,700 images to sort through, of which he says probably only one matched his strict criteria for a perfect shot.
Of his show at Gage's gallery, Parks says, "My work speaks of truth, as far as content goes. Some compositions are stronger than others - it's hard to say, everybody's a critic. Most of the works in the show are solid photographs, but some are gimmicky. "Man II" and the Seattle urban stuff is some of the strongest."
Gage is a little less critical of Parks' work. He sees the images as a technical achievment as well as the product of "an excellent eye for stuff. His work is in the classic documentary style, but he has far more of an empathy and kind-of a wide-eyed childlike perspective, he says. "I respect anybody that can work with people, and they're good people pictures."
Parks sees himself as a good technician, but emphasizes, "It's more important to have good content than to be technically perfect. I'm a good printer, but content is more important to me. It's not a picture-perfect world."
Hal Gage will be featuring vaious artists from Alaska in his April Fools' art show featuring "foolish art, whatever that is." Look forward also to Don Decker, a mixed-media artist doing photographically-derived work who will be featured March 24th.