Contemporary Photographer Series - Parker Day
MFA Studio Arts Candidate, Delaney Rogers:
Hi, everyone! This is Parker Day with me, she is a visual artist based in Los Angeles, and she's known for her portraits, exploring identity with bright colors, exaggerated expressions and with lots of makeup and dress involved. So thank you for joining me Parker.
Parker Day: Yes. happy to be here.
Delaney Rogers: So you shoot with film. Right?
Parker Day: I do. Yeah, I shoot exclusively with film, mostly 35 mm. Every now and again I will dabble with medium format. Generally to my taste medium format just looks too much like digital, you get too much resolution and I like a bit of grit and grain and I like things to be kind of obfuscated by the grain. You know, I don't I don't need like smooth perfection that you get with medium format or contemporary digital cameras. 35 mm has more of a nostalgic quality to it, since it's associated with a snapshot photos from days of yore and and I like that kind of sort of nostalgic cast off kind of vibe.
Delaney Rogers: Yeah, I mean, you get such amazing like exposure and color, and like even the light effects. I'm like amazed that these aren't edited images.
Parker Day: Yeah, I just got my my secret sauce worked out with the lighting the film, and then my scanner and the scanning software because I'll sometimes do some tweaks in light room mostly, and not so much photoshop, but generally it's just in the the view scan software that i’m dialing it in. My scanner is like a 20-25 year old scanner. It's just I really like this specific scanner. I've bought so many of them because they break. And then you know, you'd live in fear that the one you're working with currently is going to break. So you got a backup. They don't they don't make them like that anymore. I don't like the the current scanners on the the market that I've tried.
Delaney Rogers: What does your process look like when you're setting up your images? I know you have this tableau layout. How do you select your props and your environment?
Parker Day: So most people like know me for my icons body of work, which is the like very colorful studio portraits with the problems and the costuming and all that. So I'm working on a series right now in a very similar vein. It’s going to be 1,000 final photos. It’ll be an NFT collection. So that's why it has like this great breadth and it is structured so that I have 100 characters and they each perform 10 different emotions, and each emotion has a different prop and different background. So the props in this series are repeated across the characters. When the final NFT collection comes out, you'll be able to sort through the 1,000 images by the props by the character types, by background stuff like that. This series has been a fun mix and match with the props and the people and the background like I have a a big shelf just full of props that I grab. Me and my assistant like plan out ahead of time this emotion is going to go with this prop. If the emotion is horny, maybe I’ll do red and black whip, or if it's a sad, i'll pick like this really pathetic looking stuffed animal that's 70 years old and has an eye falling off. Especially with this series of trying to like augment that emotion we select and consider how it corresponds with the character in their costuming. Sometimes a prop will have nothing literally to do with the character but just through the association it'll feel like the prop has some kind of like magical symbolism, it like it's infused with the energy from the character and the model. I kinda like when the prop is a non sequitur because then when you're viewing the photo, it's like you feel like it has some significance so maybe you insert that in there and I think that then the power of it is put in by the viewer.
Delaney Rogers: Yeah. Well, symbols are so like malleable in their meaning like how our identity is malleable in that way, right?
Parker Day: For sure.
Delaney Rogers: So I was gonna ask you about your models, who is modeling for you and how do you source that? Because you have such a diversity, from what I've seen in your work, of different people.
Parker Day: Yeah. So I like to pick expressive people, people who are comfortable with who they are. I don't generally do that well with “models”, because models have a sort of prescribed way of acting in front of a camera. They're like, okay, this is this is my pretty face, my sexy face, you know they just go through their thing like I want people who just who are, whose emotions are right there on the surface, and who aren’t thinking about how they're seeing they're just present. That's that's what I look for and it’s not always easy to find. I'm doing my casting on Instagram, so i'm scrolling through posts and trying to get a sense for who the person is. I want them to be able to play with me, doing a shoot is fun, it’s exploring identity and emotion and you gotta bring a sense of play to not be self-conscious.
Delaney Rogers: Well, my next question has to do with that, how much are you posing them, or adding to their costume, and how much of it is kind of like you letting them kind of play for the camera?
Parker Day: I'm gonna keep talking about series I’ve been working on because that's freshest in my mind. The series is tentatively called “FUN!”. So with this series I'm doing 99% of the costuming, I pick the model I conceive of the character for them. I pick out the costuming, and then I have a makeup artist that helps bring it to life. I do a lot of directing, we’ll pick out the emotions that we're gonna perform. I'll direct them, but I love it when I get someone who's just got some acting chops, they've got a flare for the dramatic. I hope they'll just go there, I tell them bring the melodrama. Give me over the top telenovela cheese.
Delaney Rogers: I think you've said this in other interviews that you feel like the fantasy aspect, the over acting of it adds more realism, right?
Parker Day: What I've found is that people seem to identify more with the more cartoony characters and portrayals. I think that's because those photos, and those characters are in a more symbolic space rather than the space of it being just a straight portrait. When you look at the straight portrait of someone it's about that person. If you've got like the the green skinned lady with the the eyeballs popping out and like bloody smile like that in the realm of symbolic, that's not about the model.
Delaney Rogers: Could you explain a little bit about the concept behind the work and and how this identity exploration is happening, and kind of what you want it to say to your audience?
Parker Day: Throughout all my work thus far, I'm interested in identity and how it’s performed and perceived, and our ability to change that through our costuming, gestures and expressions. I hope people recognize the power they have to take control of their identity, and how they exist in the world. I think people are very unconscious of a lot of power they have in different aspects of life, and every day we get dressed and that's an opportunity to tap into how you want to feel and how you want to be seen and exist in the world. It's a small thing that I think is really powerful. I love clothes and transformation, I always have since I was a little girl playing dress up. I dyed my hair like a natural color from hot pink because I feel more like I want to be perceived as more grown up or more mature at this moment, and that's something that I can take control over. For my photos I always say that they’re characters, right? And they are, but they’re infused with the energy of the model and me. I always think the model, and I are making this third thing that's an expression of both of us that, hopefully, the viewer can see something of themselves in. I think we all have so much potential in us that goes unrealized. I think it's important for us to kind of tap into the fullness of our being, and see ourselves and others, and explore who we are, and to not take it so seriously. I might just speak to that for a minute, because I've been shooting in this vein, thinking about the malleability of identity since, 2015, 2016, and identity has become such a hot topic in that time. I think that's great in so many ways that we are having conversations in the culture about identity expression. Sometimes I feel like people just take it too seriously and start to cling to an identity. It may be like a new identity for them, or an identity that’s shunned in society. and I get that, however, I don't think it's a good idea to ever cling to any identity too tightly because there’s only pain in that kind of ego identification. Because the ego isn't who you are, it's the character you're playing. I think peace and happiness is found in identifying with what transcends the ego. I'm all about the character and the play of forms of ego identities, but what i'm really interested in is what behind all of that, what's behind those masks. That's why I do these series where there's so many different characters, so many different models, but they're all shot in very much the same way because I want to equate these disparate ego identities. They all have so much force of presence, there's a lot of life force energy coming through all these different masks, and that's what it's really all about, that's where we're all connected, and that's what gives life to all these different forms. So don't get stuck on the surface. Don’t, I believe that that's all you are, have fun with it, but know you're so much more. That's my preach moment.
Delaney Rogers: Thank you, I appreciate it. Okay. So you're kind of blending this kind of fantasy, reality, ego with the attraction and repulsion of this in your face maximalist image. How do you find yourself navigating the balance between that attraction and discomfort? Do you personally embrace that kind of maximalism while using it as a tool to create that kind of tension for your audience?
Parker Day: I think getting the viewer into that space of attraction and aversion simultaneously is really potent. I love that, because if you’re attracted something, but at the same time kind of grossed out with yourself for being attracted to it, then it makes you question what's going on? What's pulling you in and pushing you away at the same time? I like that feeling of uncertainty and questioning. Because pretty things are boring, it can’t be just pretty. You’ve got to have some warts, whiskers, and messiness in there too. It’s all about the contrast. That’s something I consciously conjure up. My favorite photos often are the more grotesque ones and certainly not everyone’s cup of tea but it seems like the people who really like my photos really get excited about those ones, too, rather than the just like “Oh, that's nice” kind of photos that are more palatable. Yeah, I want a little bitter in my sweet.
Delaney Rogers: Alright, last question. Are there artists that you're looking at, that you would recommend looking at it?
Parker Day: Oh, yeah. So I love Moni Hawworth. I like Petra Collins. I love Pieter Hugo. This one photographer I love Charlie White did this series called Understanding Joshua and I just think it’s the best thing ever.
Delaney Rogers: Well, thank you so much for for meeting with me today.
Parker Day: Super fun. Thank you for letting me talk about myself. It's nice.
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