Quote: "The first pictures I shot were wet foot prints I'd left along a path. I just turned around and saw them and shot. It was a first picture and from that point it was the sort of thing I've photographed ever since - just things that I'm curious about, or saw, that I'm interested in...like dragon flies in a spider web."
Trent Parke joined Magnum Photos in 2002 and became a Member in 2007.

Trent Parke
Australian, b. 1971

Trent Parke was born in 1971 and raised in Newcastle, New South Wales. Using his mother's Pentax Spotmatic and the family laundry as a darkroom, he began taking pictures when he was around 12 years old. Today, Parke, the only Australian photo-grapher to be represented by Magnum, works primarily as a street photographer.

In 2003, with wife and fellow photographer Narelle Autio, Parke drove almost 90,000 km (56,000 miles) around Australia. Minutes to Midnight, the collection of photographs from this journey, offers a sometimes disturbing portrait of twenty-first century Australia, from the desiccated outback to the chaotic, melancholic vitality of life in remote Aboriginal towns. For this project Parke was awarded the W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography.

Parke won World Press Photo Awards in 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2005, and in 2006 was granted the ABN AMRO Emerging Artist Award. He was selected to be part of the World Press Photo Masterclass in 1999. Parke has published two books, Dream/Life in 1999, and The Seventh Wave with Narelle Autio in 2000. His work has been exhibited widely. In 2006 the National Gallery of Australia acquired Parke's entire Minutes to Midnight exhibition.

Awards

2005 World Press Photo Award ( for “Wiluna”)
2003 Eugene W. Smith Award for humanistic photography
2001 World Press Photo Award (for “Australian Roadkill” series)
2000 Canon photo essay prize, Sasakawa World Sports Awards
2000 World Press Photo Award (for “The Seventh Wave”)
1999 World Press Photo Award (for “Bathurst Car Races”)
1996/98 Gold Lens, International Olympic Committee (5)

Exhibitions

2005 Colour Work, Stills Gallery, Sydney
Minutes to Midnight, Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney
2004 Minutes to Midnight - Part One, Leica Gallery, Germany
Suspended States, Sydney Arts Festival
2002 Dream/Life & Beyond - Stills Gallery, Sydney
Sydney Treasures, Art & About, Sydney

with Narelle Autio
2004 Dream/Life & the Seventh Wave -Ariel Meyerowitz Gallery, New York
FotoFreo Photographic Festival, Western Australian Maritime Museum,
Fremantle
2002 Dva Pivo Prosim (Two Beers Please) - Stills Gallery, Sydney
Dream/Life and The Seventh Wave, Canvas International Art Gallery, Amsterdam
2000 The Seventh Wave, Stills Gallery, Paddington

Collections

National Gallery of Australia
National Gallery of Victoria
National Maritime Museum
University of Sydney Union
Numerous private collections

Books

2005 Minutes to Midnight, Filigranes
2000 The Seventh Wave, Hot Chilli Press
1999 Dream Life, Hot Chilli Press