Interview: A Study in Process and Light - Integral Works by Ben Parks
When I first saw the photography of Los Angeles-based artist Ben Parks, I was entranced by his use of color and light. Reminiscent of a J.M.W. Turner painting, Ben’s work obscures more than reveals, swirling with movement through abstraction of subject and landscape. It makes viewers question the nature of photography’s role as art form: fact or fiction, real or imagined. Ben challenges this using instant film and various converted cameras to achieve certain color palettes: a Graflex Super D, Intrepid MKII 8X10, and a custom Polaroid 110 converted to 4X5 by the late Dean Jones.
The photographic process for Ben is just as important – maybe more so – as the final result. He says, “the desire drifts more toward the idea of portraying the archaic innocence of the instant print, and its power to convey the frailty of moments by manipulating the interplay of exaggerated natural light and color on a deconstructed landscape. The hope is to present a body of work that speaks to the surrealistic quality of a world which exists only for a second.” Evanescent and fragmented, much like memory, Ben’s imagery invites us to experience ephemeral mystery and beauty through his lens.
INTERVIEW
Lisa Toboz: When did you start doing photography?
Ben Parks: A camera was always around the house growing up. My father was a bit of a dabbler and I think he wanted to share an artistic passion with his children so my brother, sister and I received Kodak 110s as Christmas gifts in 1977 and the seed was most likely planted once those first color photos came back from the local Fotomat drive-thru kiosk. To me, at that young age, to hold a physical print of a photo I had taken was an almost magical experience.
LT: What attracts you to using integral film?
BP: I know it sounds a little strange but I’ve always been more passionate about the process rather than the final result. This likely stems from a holdover mindset when an early pursuit in abstract painting transitioned over to photography. This may seem a little counterintuitive because photography as a medium traditionally has been centered around capturing a specific moment rather than a light study in color and abstraction. Integral film offers an extra layer of manipulation of the emulsion that is just unobtainable with conventional film stocks. Decades of darkroom work, countless hours of trial and error, trying everything from Liquid Light to alternate chemicals and still the desired color palette I was looking for always seemed to elude me. Not until Polaroid integral, peel-apart, and now Instax film did I begin to see new possibilities and directions for the work. The saturation level and tonal ranges can be worked, adjusted and manipulated unlike any other current films on the market.
LT: What or who are inspirations for your work?
BP: As funny as it sounds I still have a tendency to look at the world around me with a childlike wonder. Even amongst all the darkness that exists in humanity, there is an undeniable beauty that still somehow manages to bleed through if you open yourself up to it. I tend to be most inspired by the light of the day, how it affects everything around me, how quickly it changes and how brilliantly it can paint the landscape. Then it’s gone.
LT: Talk a little about your process. Do you plan images or see where the light takes you?
BP: No, I don't plan anything. For my style of work, it's just too limiting to try and create based on some sort of previsualization. I much prefer to put myself out in the world and let the light dictate the direction and subject matter.
LT: Describe the first photo you’ve taken that made you fall in love with photography.
BP: This is a bit of a difficult one to answer because it wasn’t any one particular photograph that made me fall in love with the medium but rather a camera. Around 2000 - 2002, I was working mostly with two cameras: a Leica M3 and Rolleiflex 2.8e. The work then was focused on human form in abstraction and just the beginnings of deconstructing landscape in color. Wildly frustrated with the limitations of traditional film, I began to explore new ideas with Polaroid peel-apart stocks such as 667 and 669 on cameras like the Polaroid 180 and 110 Four Designs conversion because of the glass lenses and controllability. While those two cameras were truly responsible for breaking down the barriers, opening up new possibilities and directions, it wasn't till I purchased the Hasselblad 500cm with an instant back did the work start to gel in any real meaningful way. We are all guilty of waxing poetic about cameras but the 500cm just feels like an extension of my eye and arm - something about the set up makes sense to my vision - and when I look down the finder the world around me just seems to expose its true beauty for the briefest of moments. That camera is what made me fall in love with photography.
LT: Even though your images capture moments in time, there is a strong sense of place through color and movement, even with abstraction. How does your home base, Los Angeles, influence your work?
BP: Los Angeles is just a part of me so the influence it has had over my work is immeasurable. I was born here in ‘72 and grew up in the ‘80s, a point in time with no social media and limited ingestible means of information. If you wanted to discover the city as a teenager you had to make it happen on your own and navigate the world around you with only a sense of curiosity for guidance. This was how we preferred it really, a seemingly endless landscape of constantly changing neighborhoods, characters and locations at our fingertips. I began to notice over time just how the land and cityscape would transform as the light would fall from the mountains to the east at dawn out to the coast in the west as the day began to close. How it would warm and cool with the change in season. I think these backseat-window observations afforded me the ability to deconstruct a scene from recognizable forms, and realize what was happening was the light working in tandem with both natural and manmade elements to dictate the color palette on a grand canvas. I think I still look at the world in much the same way and Los Angeles was and will always be the spark.
LT: What is one person, place, or object that you wish to capture on film but haven’t yet?
BP: I spent a month in France almost 12 years ago and there is still one thing I think about shooting on an almost weekly basis. I’m almost embarrassed because it’s such a tourist destination and so random that it borders on the ridiculous but it has had such a hold on my psyche that I’ve vowed to return and photograph them without the restriction of time and smaller formats. You’d think having focused a vast majority of my work in the wide-open expanses it would be something grand in scale with natural light, but it’s actually the underground stations of the Paris Metro system. I couldn’t really begin to explain my draw other than one's own natural gravitation toward the strange juxtaposition of civilization and nature, light and dark, wealth and poverty, and on and on. I just found myself captivated and started a small series with my Nikon 35Ti but quickly realized that for me to truly capture the strange grandeur in the scale of my mind's eye it needed to be integral film on 4X5 and 8X10. One day.
LT: What does the future hold for you – exhibitions, books, or new projects?
BP: I’ve had a project languishing for a while now that I’d like to devote some time to in the coming year. The series centers around 4X5 and 8X10 abstract black and white portraits. Started a decade ago, it was always something I would fall back on in times of being completely blocked creatively or locked into my home without time to travel. I recently sat down with a stack of those old darkroom prints and am always struck by just how beautiful the human form can be, especially when captured in black and white. The time just feels right to revisit.
GALLERY
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Ben Parks is a photographer who was born, raised and currently resides in Los Angeles. He received a BA in Studio Arts with an emphasis in both Photography and Art History. His work has been published and exhibited in the United States and United Kingdom. Working abstractly through the use of traditional film photography, he chooses to focus on the deconstruction of landscapes as they are defined by natural light rather than recognizable form.
“My photography centers around a desire to portray the archaic innocence of the instant print, and its power to convey the frailty of moments by manipulating the interplay which can exaggerate natural light on a deconstructed subject. The hope is to present a body of work that speaks to the surrealistic quality of a world which exists only for a fraction of a second just before the break of dawn or as the stillness of the impending darkness settles upon the evening hours.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Image by Kitoko Chargois
Lisa Toboz is a self-taught, lens-based artist with an MFA in Writing from the University of Pittsburgh. She combines photography and collage using family archives and found objects to explore autobiography, mortality, and storytelling. Her photo books include Dwell (Polyseme, 2020) and The Long Way Home (Static Age UK, 2018). She has exhibited internationally, and her photography can be found in various publications including Lenscratch, Reed Magazine, Fisheye Magazine, Uppercase, SHOTS Magazine, and Polaroid Now (Chronicle Books, 2021). She is the self-portrait category winner in the 23rd Julia Margaret Cameron Awards, a Photolucida Critical Mass finalist, and an Analog Sparks Best Conceptual photography award recipient.
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