Magnum Blog / The Christmas Tree Bucket - Trent Parkes Family Album

The Christmas Tree Bucket - Trent Parkes Family Album

AUSTRALIA. South Australia. Adelaide. 2008. © Trent Parke/Magnum Photos In November 2004, our first son Jem was born. At the time my partner Narelle and I lived in a small, two-bedroom apartment in Sydney. Apart from two years living in a tent, I had spent the last 15 years of my life living in apartment blocks. In October 2006 our second son Dash was born. Our small two-bedroom apartment became even smaller. Things had to change. Wanting more space, family support and a change of scenery we moved to the city of Adelaide, Narelle's place of birth. On arriving in Adelaide, with our life in storage, we bunkered down with Narelle's folks while we tried to find a place to live. Like my parents in Newcastle, they live in the suburbs. One afternoon I decided to venture to the local mega mall, specifically to the hairdresser. After removing all of my very long hair the very young hairdresser said 'There you go, a new hair cut for a new start'. I thought, that's nice and what a great thing it was to be able to see again. On returning to the in-laws that evening I started to feel very odd and a little queasy. As day turned to night I lay down on the freshly mown back lawn and watched clouds drift past a nearly full moon. I expected to hear a dog howl or a cat wail. I started vomiting, violently, and uncontrollably. I grabbed the nearest thing I could throw up into. Narelle and her parents, Laurie and Ann were sitting in the back room watching the TV. 'Narelle' I yelled out, again throwing up. 'What' she said, 'You want me to come out and photograph you?'. 'Yeah' I yelled back. 'Ohh you've got to be joking' Laurie gasped, as he rose from his chair. Narelle came out and climbed on to a table. The sudden blast of the flash lit up what I could smell, but couldn't see. Bright, brilliant, red. Ann joined the crowd gathering to see the show. Another flash. Bright, brilliant, red. Ann yells, 'Ohhh Laurie he's vomiting into the Christmas tree bucket!' Another flash. And it was there, while staring into that bright red bucket, vomiting every hour on the hour, for fifteen hours straight, that I started to think how strange, families, suburbia, life, vomit and in particular, Christmas…. really was. Trent Parkes new exhibition "The Christmas Tree Bucket - Trent Parkes family album" will be shown at the Australian Centre for Photography from 21st November 2008 to 21 January 2009. Links » Trent Parkes Magnum Portfolio » View Trent Parkes Magnum In Motion essay "Minutes to Midnight"

Stupid Photographer

Is it ALREADY that dead tree snaps time of year, AGAIN? Sheesh. Perhaps last time I should have asked for tits and ass after all...
http://blog.magnumphotos.com/2008/01/its_that_time_of_year_again.html

Luca

I lived in Australia for a bit.Everything in your Adelaide's work is full of australian life:colors,plastic,cakes,confused happiness and time...and vomit of course.I was in "le bal magnum" in june thanks to Paolo Pellegrin(thank you again).You were the first name that i wanted to meet.I saw you but i hesitated.i waited too much.when i finaly decided to do it and i started to search for you maybe it was too late.I didnt find you. "he's probably vomiting somewhere" i thought and i left.

peter

Sometimes it is difficult to pinpoint exactly when a blog went down the toilet. In this case it's easy.

Lea Kast

Guys, i think you just don't get the irony of the posting. The image alone would be boring, but together with the text it is a very nice teaser for more images to come. I doubt this will only be about christmas.

Nikos Roccos

The picture by itself is the quintessence of boredom.If a picture to be read needs some hundreds of words-or may be thousands?-just to live such a fragile and unstable life,then this is no picture but illustration -and not of the highest quality-just to accompany a likewise boring text.

Anonymous

Picture is good

Jason Hobbs

Hi Trent,

I like the picture and the story. What was it that made you spew anyway?

Jason

Lassal

Have to agree with anonymous and Jason Hobbs: I really (!) like the picture, and ... I have not yet read the story (just quickly went over the comments).

Trent, I am sure you do have at least one more Magnum Photographer in love with this photo :)

Peace,
Lassal

mort

Great teaser. I'm intrigued now! Will you be showing this new work in Europe by any chance?

trent

Thanks for the comments and the sledges. Being Australian i would be disappointed not to see a few good quality sledges flying around. We built a world champion cricket team around it. ( who have just been humbled in India mind you and may not be world champions much longer. )
Toilets, boredom, that time of the year again are all in some way relevant to this work.

I have just returned from a project i am currently working on and will be around for a few days before heading off again. I will try to answer any other questions regarding life in general or old or new work .

Jason, vomit is always a good place to start. I have only vomited twice in my life and it still remains a mystery why it happened .

Luca, sorry to have missed you, but i can assure you that at Le Bal was not the second.

Mort, This year the ACP is the first showing of the work, however there will be a selection of images at Paris Photo if you happen to be going.

best t

Luca

So what about the first time?:)

Cant miss it on the Paris Photo.
Thanks,Trent

Bliss

Did I hear some rumours there are books in the pipe line Trent? What's the best place to put my name down before they sell out?

trent

Hi Bliss, yes its been a long time since my last book and i have several that are finished in terms of the artist books that i make.
I made the mistake of releasing Dream/life when i did as i continued that work for another three years after the book was published. It was during this later period when the work really became complete.

So i have tended to let the dust settle on a completed project with the hope that next time i will get it right. (and live with the pictures a while longer.)

I also had a great deal of trouble getting the sequencing right in Minutes To Midnight .
With out the expert help of Jim Goldberg and Mark Power over several years , i would still be pulling the thing apart. Just a few photographs that expressed a certain meaning to me expressed something completely different for them. And when you create a narrative from random unrelated photographs it can be quite a difficult thing to get right.

Anyway I have three books that i think are complete and ready to go. A couple of others that are close, and hopefully the first one will come out next year. I would not worry about them selling out though.

yujtikreew

Very nice site. I enjoy your webcam the most. Beautiful scenery! Keep up the great work.

Cary

Trent, your brand of honesty and self scrutiny is totally refreshing, re: wishing you'd waited to publish Dream/Life. You should start your own blog.

Michael George

I think there's an inverse relationship between how much I enjoy a post and the tone of the first few comments.

med

Hi!

Fantastic job. I love your style. In black/white and in colour too! Incredible.

Which flash do you use with the Mamiya?

Thank you for all you pictures since so many years!

Sorry for my bad english :)

David Cooper

Find your work so inspiring,just off the scale in goodness! Would love to know how you went about projecting the shadows on to moving vehicles,I read that it was a 3 second exposure? Did you use a ND filter?
Can't wait to see some new stuff,was funny to see you getting pissed off in the Magnum in motion video with the bad light in London(where I'm from).
David