Book Review: Trent Parke: Cue the Sun
Images courtesy Trent Parke and Stanley Barker
Written by Audrey Yin
Copy Edited by Chloë Rain
Photo Edited by Yanting Chen
Cue the Sun (Stanley Barker, May 2022) memorializes photographer Trent Parke’s journey through a pre-pandemic Northern India. As described by his publisher, this highly sought after 116-page book is a collision of the past and the future. As we travel alongside Parke, we are offered the richness of Agra, Amritsar, Delhi, Dharamshala, Meerut and Mathura (Stanley Barker, 2022). Here, the road is not a desolate space, but a buzzing passage of communal movement, whether it be physical or something more abstract, such as the movement towards modernization. From frame to frame, the people change, but the story of migration does not.
Images courtesy Trent Parke and Stanley Barker
In an article for the Washington Post, Kenneth Dickerman credits Parke’s muscle memory for the creation of this genius piece of work, stating, “There are photographers, other artists and even athletes who spend so much time honing their discipline that it becomes more or less automatic… Parke is no exception to the rule, and this book proves it.” From inky nights to burning sunsets, Parke maintains the integrity of his setting and subjects by embracing his role as a voyeur. He doesn’t disturb the stillness of the evening or the inevitability of each passing hour. With his camera perched behind the windows of moving vehicles, Parke weaves together a story of dynamism by mastering passiveness.
Images courtesy Trent Parke and Stanley Barker
In many of his photographs, lively figures are bathed in the flash of Parke’s camera. Emitting a spotlight on each passerby, building and sign lining the roads, the illumination adds a dream-like quality to Parke’s images, creating the illusion that they are pieces of a memory or emotions plucked from his subconscious. The brightness demands us to notice and examine every detail that has been laid bare. But more than anything, it fosters a space for our imagination to flourish. “I don’t think most of Parke’s output is really about describing the exterior of things,” Dickerman writes, “Instead, Parke’s work is more about the internal, imagination, ideas and feelings.”
Images courtesy Trent Parke and Stanley Barker
In a 2014 interview with Cambridge University, Parke spoke about his relationship with his camera, calling it “an extension of all that [he] experiences in [his] life.” Ever since he was a child, Parke was fond of documenting everything that crossed his path. His travels, sense of adventure and curiosity for new experiences has led him to find a home in photo books. He cites Robert Frank’s The Americans (1958) and William Eggleston’s Los Alamos as two major influences for his personal work, and their legacies are evident within the pages of Cue the Sun.
Images courtesy Trent Parke and Stanley Barker
Cue the Sun documents a culture that ushers in the day, and a people that breathes life into a land. Parke asks for us to sit alongside him, to peer through bus windows and reflect on how we are looking.
